New Possibilites
by hpfan111
Summary: After Pettigrew betrays the Potter, Harry is picked by a responsible French auror who takes him to France and raises him. But Harry is not without the knowledge of his parents, as Remus helps him understand his parents. What happens when they are forced to go to Hogwarts for the triwizard tournament? AU, OOC (ABANDONED)
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I am a big fan of HP and I mess with the story the way I wish. You should **read my profile first** just in case you don't like my writing and perspective.

This is my first fic so please guide me in improving my writing instead of berating me straight away because as I said this is my fic so the story will obviously be mine. And it would be better if you comment on **the writing style instead of story and theme**.

Also, I don't have a beta, so there may be some grammatical mistakes. Please try to read past that.

* * *

 **Prologue**

The hooded man pointed his wand at the toddler and said the cursed words "Avada Kedavra". As soon as the green light reached the child, it bounced back towards the caster. All that was left was a pile of clothes and a wand where moments ago the man had stood. A mist rose out of the pile and fled the room. No sooner it all happened, a crack was heard and after a few seconds a man with long hair came in and seeing the dead body of the wife of his dead best friend outside the room, he started crying. He lifted the crying baby and started whispering soothing tones as he went down. When he reached for the main door, he saw red light and then everything went black.

* * *

After having heard that you-know-who had been spotted in Godric's Hollow, Pierre Martin immediately went to the village. He wasn't a coward, he was an auror and a damn good one at that; not everyone was posted in a foreign country without telling the authorities that they will play host to a foreign security personnel. He had been posted as an undercover agent in the Britain by French Ministry of Magic after having received disturbing reports about two of the aurors that had worked in collaboration with the French aurors some time ago. His job was simple enough; he had to track the Potter family and the Sirius Black. The only problem was that the Potters couldn't be found, but he had found some things about Sirius Black including how he had ran from his home at 16 and had been subsequently disowned.

Right now, he was inside the house that was previously under Fidelius Charm and had been broken completely by excessive use of magic powered by the negative emotions. He was waiting for return of Sirius Black who had gone inside the upper room from where the sound of a crying child was coming. He disillusioned himself and as soon as Sirius made for the main door, he stunned him, and then modified his memory so he will remember that Harry wasn't even present there and then he left with the child. He made his way for France back to the Ministry and after giving his report, he made his way home with Harry, with the permission of his superiors, of course.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was a highly irritated man and that was because he could not find the Potter child. He had recently been approached by his loyal follower Rubeus Hagrid who informed him that, Sirius Black had indeed arrived at the house after the disaster, but he didn't find Harry Potter there. Now after having a quick look around the house himself, he was forced to believe that.

But he needed the child; without him, there will be problems in defeating Voldemort. He was sure that he wasn't dead; first reason that there was no body, second Tom as a young man always wanted to live forever and was obsessed with the idea of immortality so he must have taken measures to ensure that he won't die so easily.

But without the child, there would be no proof that Voldemort is gone. People could believe that Voldemort is still terrorising the people and there would be chaos everywhere. But this situation could be handled; what he was afraid of was that, people could develop doubts over his ability, his experience and stop following him, not to mention when Voldemort came back, he would be unable to use the child to rid of him.

For now, he would tell everyone that Harry has been found and placed somewhere where he will be looked after and no one will be able to harm him. His influence would ensure people will believe that. After that, he would find the child and wait for Voldemort to rise again and then when everyone will be afraid of his terror he will use the child to get rid of him permanently and once again rise in the eyes of public as the vanquisher of the Dark Lord. And Hagrid won't tell a soul if he was asked not to. Thinking that, he went to bed.

* * *

Darcey was a very relieved woman; the reason was simple, her husband had just sent her a patronus that he was in France again and he would be coming home within the hour. Ever since Pierre had been posted in Britain, she had been afraid for his safety. But she had to keep her spirits high, not only to keep herself sane but also for her 4 year old daughter Abella; she couldn't be seen by her daughter in a worried state.

When her husband finally arrived, she immediately went to embrace him and relieve him of the child he had said he would be bringing with him in his patronus. At just a year old, little Harry was an adorable kid with brilliant green eyes. It was sad to see that he hadn't even got to know his parents before they were killed. She herself could not have another child because of the complications that occurred during the delivery of Abella which rendered her barren. She would have loved to have Harry as her son and somehow her wish got fulfilled.

Pierre filled her in on the details about the situation in Britain and told her that Harry will be staying with them as their son with the approval of the Ministry. She couldn't question him about Harry not being with his parents' friends or relatives in Britain after having heard the details from his report. The only person Harry should have been staying with in Britain was his mother and she was already dead. Although, they could inform their friend Remus Lupin who was currently resting locked in his apartment, what with this being full moon night. He had joined the French aurors after having been rejected by the British Ministry. The French had a very flexible yet firm Ministry. That was also probably the only reason Voldemort's reign of terror couldn't cross the English Channel whatever his claims had been for world domination.

As far as they knew, Remus was a kind-hearted person who could never do the sort of thing that James and Sirius were involved in. Pierre also informed her that he had already informed Adrian Delacour about the incident of the past couple of hours and other details of his tour of Britain. Apolline, his wife would probably know by now what had transpired on the English soil. After talking for a rather long time, they finally retired for the night. Darcey checked the new addition to their family for the last time for the night and whispered, "Sweet dreams Harry... my son."


	2. The Secret is Out

AN: First of all, I appreciate the positive reviews I got.

When I wrote this chapter, I realised that the most difficult parts to write are the dialogues, so I will appreciate it if there are comments on the dialogues for improvement, although I won't be using too much.

I may use the words Britain and England interchangeably; I know the difference but sometimes I can't even keep track of which word I used and where; besides it almost never makes a difference in the harry potter series.

Partial Veela concept: I have made out the Veela race to be either Veela or human, no partial nature. Its simply a gene that is passed on just as simply as the rest of the genes. Only difference: the girls who have the gene will be Veela; and even though the male are capable of carrying the gene, there is no male Veela.

* * *

Chapter 2

September 1, 1991

The headmaster's office of hogwarts was completely silent, even though the man sitting in the headmaster's chair was breathing normally. He was deep in thought. For the life of him he could not understand where had Harry Potter disappeared to. The life monitoring charm that he had subtly placed on him when he visited the Potters after Harry's birth told him that he was alive and under healthy and happy conditions. The tracking charm had been removed the night his parents died. He could not understand who could have taken him when the only friends of his parents were either unable to do so, or were not available to do so or they would have told him if they would have done so.

Anyway, letters had been sent to students who will be attending Hogwarts a month back and there had been no response. Obviously, the owl had been unable to find the boy. He will have to wait and see if he is aware of the fact that he is a wizard, and whether he will opt for Hogwarts or not.

* * *

September 1, 1991

Today was the first day for school for Harry Martin, his actual last name being hidden for security reasons. He was very excited. When his elder sister had gone to Beauxbatons for the first time three years ago, he felt lonely even though he had gabrielle's house to go to. He loved his sister very much and it was a very tearful Harry who returned from the school that day. He ate very less and didn't talk for a week, before his parents had called their daughter back for family emergency. After Abella calmed Harry down and explained that he will see her again at Christmas, Easter and spend the summer with him and then he would come himself to the Beauxbatons after 3 years, he gained his previous spirits.

Now was his turn to go to the school. Last year, his father had left his auror job and taken a teaching post at Beauxbatons as Charms professor and assistant Defense professor alongwith his uncle Remus who took the job of Defense professor and assistant professor for Charms so that his father mainly stayed at home and only spent a few nights a month in the palace that was beauxbatons.

He saw Gabrielle entering from the floo of the living Room and went to her and greeted her in their native French, 'All ready Gabrielle?'

'Yes, my trunk is right outside the door. Do you know where Abella is? I couldn't find Fleur in our home and dad said that she had already come here.'

'Oh, they're in Abella's room. I don't know what they are doing, but they seem to be very excited about whatever it is.'

'We were chatting about things that little kids are not allowed to listen to', said the elder Veela sister ruffling Harry's already messy hair, gaining a glare from him.

'Don't call us kids. You're only 3 years older than us,' Harry said in mock-anger.

'And you behave more immaturely than even us,' said Gabrielle, glaring at her sister.

'Alright, alright' Fleur immediately backed off knowing that she would be berated for teasing her sister and assumed brother, for that was what she thought of him as.

The friendly banter continued, until the adults came and took them to the school. The two new entrants were sorted into the same house as their elder sibling.

Life had been good so far and it was about to get interesting for these two as they entered their first year at school.

* * *

June 30, 1992

Harry had just arrived from school after completing his first year, along with his sister. The last month had been quite interesting in that their Potions professor was possessed by Voldemort and working under the directions of the evil man. He wanted to used the philosopher's stone to gain immortality and had thus come here looking for it. Fortunately the stone was secure, but unfortunately the possession meant that the professor was killed. The information about the incident was fairly secret but the only problem was that it had gotten out that it was Harry Potter who had come to the school posing as Harry Martin. Press had been fair in their description of the events as far as was known to them. But the English press, whose papers had been subscribed by the influential members of the society including Harry's father and Adrian Delacour, was very critical and even vindictive towards the French ministry and press alike, saying that their savior and hero had been stolen from them and the French should be ashamed of it.

Harry didn't care for this, he knew that his father, with the help of the Ministry would be able to handle it. And so he didn't think too much of it.

'Mum, we're home,' his sister called from beside him.

Darcey came in from the kitchen where she had been preparing dinner for the return of her two kids, and immediately scooped them in a hug. 'Oh my babies, I missed you so much these 10 months. The home seems so empty without you two. But now you are finally here.'

'Mum, we came home for Christmas and Easter, remember?' Abella asked rolling her eyes.

Harry chuckled at the everyday arguments that started between mother-daughter and said, 'Mum, I am hungry. Can I please get some food? You guys can argue later.'

'At least wait for your father. He won't be long' his mother chided him.

The dinner was more lively than ever, since it was after a long time, that they would be staying together for a quite a while.

* * *

The next few days were a bit tense for Pierre as he had to do a lot of work to keep Harry in his home while also trying to secure his family from potential miscreants. Remus had been quite helpful in convincing the French Ministry that they had done the right thing by letting Harry stay in France, as one of his parents' best friends. Albus had tried to convince him to return Harry to England, but Remus was convinced that because of having so many posts under him, Albus was obviously not thinking properly. The British Ministry had, of course, ignored the werewolf's opinion on Harry's return to Britain completely, due to the prejudices against him.

It wasn't that Remus didn't want to go to the place, though he had more than one reason not to want to go there but he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to. Not only would he be unable to find a job and be persecuted by the Ministry and the public in general, but it would be a lost cause even if he did make it there.

She was already married and had a son with the man he perhaps hated the most in the world as that man had first taken his beloved from him and then propagated the anti-werewolf laws as if to add insult to injury. Only Lily had known about their love. He had made her promise that she would not reveal it to even James as he knew the whimsical nature of the person whom he once considered as best friend.

Now, he was confused what to make of him; it seems that Pettigrew was the only other friend who he could have trusted besides Lily and his love. It still didn't make sense to him; how could Black betray his own best friend and how could the wizard-who-was-afraid-of-his-own-shadow (Pettigrew) could stand up to the Black knowing that he had joined Voldemort. The report of Pierre only added more questions than answers, and the only way of getting answers would be to go back to England which was not possible at the moment.

* * *

A 12 year old girl was sitting in her room thinking about the recently unveiled secret of her best friend. He was the boy who she had read so much about, though now she knew they were all lies except that he survived the killing curse of Voldemort. She was initially upset at him for hiding his real identity from her for so long. After some discussions with her father and mother, she came to understand that the only reason even Fleur was included in on the secret was because she was already 4 years old, at the time he was brought and even though she could not understand the situation then, she certainly could remember that there was a new 1 year old addition to the family of her best friend.

Even though she understood it logically and convinced everyone that she was over the whole issue, there was a seed of doubt inside her mind over her best friend. She was going through puberty and it took a worse toll on Veela than normal people. She was already a pretty and cute girl who everyone adored over; now with the Veela gene finally showing its true potential, she would be gaining unwanted attention from boys. She had thought that Harry, being her best friend ever since she could remember, will be someone who she will be able to rely upon no matter what the situation was. But now, she wasn't so sure.

She was broken out of her thoughts when the boy in question entered the room after a single knock with a broom in his hands.

'Hey Gabrielle, want to come for a ride?'

'Sure'

With that Gabrielle picked up her broom and the two youngsters made their way down and out into the grounds that surrounded the Delacour home.

They didn't stick to any particular sport, just enjoyed themselves while flying sometimes playing the game of tagging, sometimes throw-and-catch and other times they followed each other as they tried to imitate the others' skills.

'Gabrielle'

'Yes'

'You aren't still mad at me, are you?'

Confused at what would prompt him to ask such a question, she said 'No Harry, I already said that I am okay with that. Why do you ask?'

'Well you have stopped coming as frequently as you used to come earlier to our home and you don't talk to me much.'

'That is because the school has only just finished a week ago and I wanted to relax a bit' , that was half truth as the statement was true but that wasn't the reason she had behaved in such a way, but as long as he believed that, there was no problem; besides he was still her friend, a small misunderstanding couldn't break that.

* * *

When Fleur had been told the truth about the brother of her best friend, she had been a bit surprised but she mostly ignored that because she was just a first year at the time. Now though with full maturity, she could certainly better understand things and now she realised that the intensity of the fact that Harry Potter was living as her friend's brother; it was only magnified with the happenings of the last year. It just meant that she would have to, with the help of Abella, keep an eye out for both Harry and Gabrielle to see that no one hurt them.

She was very intelligent and proud of her skills, especially in charms, even the teacher (harry's father) commended her saying that she is much better than he was at her age. Now she would put that skill to good use. Because of recent enmity with the rest of the student population, she already had to learn to defend herself; now there were two more who she will defend; from the events of her first year, she knew that harry was not only intelligent, but also very emotional and attached to his family, and she would be damned if anyone hurt her brother (or sister). Event though he was more attached to Abella emotionally, he connected to her on a more intellectual level. Because of this they understood each other in a way different from normal siblings.

She also knew that gabrielle liked harry and given a couple years, she would probably start dating him since she was his best friend and he probably liked her back. She hoped that gabrielle wasn't too hurt because of the silly misunderstanding; after all, it wasn't harry's fault. He had done what others had told him to for his benefit. Well, only time would tell what would happen of the two.

* * *

Abella was thinking along similar lines as her best friend, the only difference being on the approach. She wasn't particularly intelligent, but she was ambitious and did hard work to get it; not only that, she was very outgoing and regularly talked to teachers even headmistress and because of all this, she more than made up for her intelligence and was just as famous as Fleur.

Her personality was such that, if it wasn't for her appearance and voice, people would consider her a boy. She spoke very loudly and many times without thinking (which was responsible for more than half the detentions she had been assigned), she would regularly accept dares from people for bet and also sometimes play pranks. All this got her in many fights even with her own friends and brother, but at the end of the day, everyone made up with her knowing that she didn't mean any harm and without her, they wouldn't laugh half as much.

She had already decided with Fleur when she came to her house, that Remus and her dad would be looking after their siblings along with their help, at school. But she was afraid because the news had travelled to Britain that harry was living here and they had been demanding that he been returned ever since. She didn't want to lose her brother. Ever since he was brought, she absolutely adored her brother and danced to his every whim; of course, as they got older, she made him dance as well, but her attachment to him grew every day. It was only evident now, how much she was attached to him, when she was being threatened of being robbed of her brother. She was scared of this, and the attachment she held for him, although she didn't tell anyone.


	3. The Chamber opens

AN: I have deleted the character of Lockhart altogether for the sake of story.

* * *

Chapter 3

During the summer, the Martins, the Delacours and Remus had to take the brunt of a lot of pressure from the British. They were the ones who had been asked by the ministry to represent themselves, because even though they agreed with Harry remaining in their country they could not afford to cut ties with Britain either even if they were being idiotic.

The condition was becoming so bad, that they had to put a filter on their wards to immediately reject owls with howlers demanding return of the boy-who-lived and even then they checked every letter for as many traps as possible if they somehow made past their wards.

The only consolation was that the ministry, press or the public had not said a word against harry's stay and they covertly supported them.

* * *

Like the previous year, the students all went to the school on the first of September. By the end of the summer, the idiocy from across the English Channel had reduced to tolerable levels and they all had enjoyed the last couple of weeks.

Still, Remus and Pierre were being vigil for obvious reasons. Madam Maxime had been very helpful in that aspect too. She had assured them that the teachers had been investigated during the summer along with their past and they would not harm any student in any case.

* * *

In the first year, Harry and Gabrielle had made many new friends. Harry, being intelligent, had quickly caught the teachers' eyes. Gabrielle was also intelligent, but she was similar to her sister; her skills were greater than average in most subjects and in potions, she was absolute prodigy just like her sister was in charms.

They were always together, whether in classes, studying for homework or otherwise spending time for fun. They had always stuck by each other too; if anyone else tried to have a go at the other, there was no way that they would leave each other's side, except their sisters of course.

This year had also started on a similar note. Although there was some extra attention towards Harry, it was nothing unexpected. And since it was obvious curiosity and nothing more, it was tolerable. It did hinder in his private time though. He had formed some new friends from the junior year as well so he had to share some of his time with his current friends with new ones. He had always been known for making friends with younger people because of his helping nature.

He wanted to spend more time with Gabrielle, but it seemed that always someone or other would get in the way, and even Gabrielle could not do anything about it. Well, he thought, atleast there is no problem of possessed teachers this year.

One afternoon in November, when he was sitting and chatting with his friends, someone brought to his and everyone's attention a piece of news that came in the day's newspaper. A boy had been petrified in Hogwarts without any clue of how it happened. A month ago, a cat had been found in the same state, but it had been ignored mostly. Now there was confusion, as to how a student had been petrified in a school and who had done it; surely the students couldn't have learned how to do a petrification. Nevertheless, the perpetrator of the crime was still loose.

There was some speculation in France as well about the situation, but mainly among the people to whom it was relevant.

And so, the life returned to normal the next day. Nowadays, harry was able to find lots of time to spend time with his best friend Gabrielle. But something was off about her even now; he attributed it to her puberty as he had been told by many people that for Veelas, it was hard and so he let it go.

It was after Christmas that the news from Hogwarts got really interesting. Apparently, there had been again a student found petrified, which was similar to the previous news, but the additional part was that a ghost had also been found on the same spot and in a petrified state. This news had been disclosed along with the fact that during the cat's petrification, a message had been found written on the walls in blood, "Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware". This time everyone got scared as to what was responsible for such horrifying things; surely a normal wizard wasn't capable of doing such a thing. Not to mention there was a legend saying there is a monster residing in the chamber built by Salazar Slytherin.

This time the discussions about the petrifications didn't die out until after a week. And again life went back to normal, well mostly; for Harry, the news was one of many signs that he was about to get stuck in a storm that was rising in Hogwarts.

* * *

This year, the Martin and Delacour kids had only gone home for Christmas, not for Easter, because this time their parents were going on a vacation for some alone time. So that meant that Remus was alone in the Beauxbatons palace, with other teachers of course. But without his best friends, he had a lot of time on his hands. He made good use of it.

He started correspondence with his Hogwarts counterpart and a trusted friend, John Robards, in secret, asking for discretion on Robards' part as well. They finally arranged a meeting in muggle Paris and he was currently waiting for the other man to show up.

Soon, he could see him making his way to the table.

'Hello, Mr Lupin.'

'Come now John, we are in Paris', Lupin greeted shaking his hand.

Lupin called the waiter and ordered a beer and asked John if he would like anything.

'No thank you, Remus, I would rather like you to get directly to the point. I am risking my job as it is by coming to France without informing anyone, and to meet a werewolf no less'. On seeing the angry expression on Lupin's face, he quickly added 'I don't mean it like that, but you know exactly what they think of werewolves as. Besides, if I would have been like them, I would not have come to meet you, would I?'

'Understandable. Well, do you remember the news headlines when the Potters died?'

And so, Lupin told him about the fact that Voldemort's body was never found and the Dumbledore's warning about Voldemort coming back in future, to lure Harry back to England under his protection.

'He said that one day, Voldemort will return. He wasn't very forthcoming with details but he seemed insistent with Harry returning to England. I am sure there is more to it, but I don't know what.'

'It is interesting. I will do what I can.' He looked at Lupin for a while when he wasn't looking and asked, 'You still love her, don't you?'

'Don't go there' Lupin slightly growled.

'You know, she didn't seem very happy the last time I saw her'

'Yeah, well she still chose him, didn't she? She was just leading me on, otherwise why would she go after him, and then stop talking to me altogether. She must have realised a werewolf wasn't worth her time.'

'Remus don't, you know as well as I do that she was not such a shallow person. I don't know her reason for marrying that scum, but it wasn't you. So stop blaming her, or your illness for it.'

'Goodbye John' Knowing that it would be useless talking to Remus when he was engaged in self-pity, he took his leave and left, determined on finding out what it was that was causing havoc in the school and try to find out what was going on with her and her death eater husband. He would help Remus as much as he could.

* * *

Back in Beauxbatons, Abella had just completed her assignments for the holidays, when her attention turned towards her brother. She knew, from Uncle Remus, that Voldemort wasn't dead yet, at least according to Dumbledore. Knowing the casualties from the first war, she was scared for his return, as any sane person should. But she was more scared about her brother. She didn't want him to go back. She had even ranted about the same to her parents, although they were of the same opinion.

She also noticed that Harry and Gabrielle seemed to be spending more time apart then previous year. Earlier, she had thought that it was just an outcome of the added attention on Harry. But now she could see that Harry was more interested in talking about Gabrielle, not that he previously wasn't but now it had crossed the boundaries of normal friendship; although he wasn't exactly noticing it.

Well, since her assignments were already complete, she decided that she would have some fun and play some pranks on the second years; it had been a couple of weeks since she last did it. She had a rule: never prank a firstie, even at the end of the year to give them time to adjust to new surroundings. So she went down to the common room.

* * *

Just after Easter, another petrification news came. This time, 2 girls had been found petrified at different spots. Remus' information had been of some help to John. After doing some research of his own and talking to Hagrid, he was finally able to figure out that the monster had to be a basilisk. The only problem was he couldn't figure out where could a monster as big as basilisk might be staying or how exactly was it staying hidden when roaming inside the castle.

He immediately left for the Hogsmeade village to buy some roosters and when he came back, he saw that a girl had been taken into the chamber itself; the girl being Ginny Weasley. Then it all clicked into place. All the spots where the messages and petrifications had been seen were all at the same distance from the second floor girls' lavatory, which had been found leaking water during the cat's petrification.

When he reached there with some roosters, he asked Myrtle about her death due to his research on the Chamber of Secrets. On being pointed towards the sinks, he noticed the tap with the snake head. After casting some charms to see if it could be moved with the help of magic, he understood that it was not possible. But it wasn't protected against other methods. So instead of trying to somehow move the sink out of his path, he simply cast a powerful 'Reducto' towards it. What was left was a space between the sinks big enough for 2 people to enter a hole big enough for much more. Gathering all his courage, he leapt into it.

* * *

Remus couldn't help but feel bad that the last words that he had spoken to his friend had been so harsh. And now, now he was dead. The news had come today that a girl had been taken into the chamber itself and John had obviously gone there. After that, the details were quite vague, obviously Dumbledore's doing, and finally it was written that ultimately Dumbledore had to go in there to bring them back when he found about the destroyed sinks. It wasn't written how the petrifications were done, or how the girl ended up in the chamber; the only thing that Dumbledore had said was that the monster had been killed.

Still, there was nothing he could do for his friend now, nor make up for his mistake. At least his last act was heroic, even the 'Daily Prophet' recognised him and the ministry gave him an appropriate post-humous award.

* * *

The whole Chamber fiasco had opened the eyes of everyone in his family and Delacours and Remus to the fact that, somehow Harry will get dragged into the scheme of things. Harry was especially worried because he didn't want his normal life here to end but what was to come, will come no matter what. And he better be prepared for it.

* * *

AN: So that's second year done. Next one or two chapters will be third year, and then the main story will begin.


	4. Unpleasant Truth

AN: Please do not forget to review. It really does give motivation not just to write, but to write good. You can review even if you're a guest user or if you wish to give anonymous review.

I realised a mistake from chapter 3 by not providing a piece of information. For those of you who do not know, roosters' cry is deadly to basilisk.

* * *

Chapter 4

He was swimming as fast as he possibly could. He wouldn't want to get caught now, would he? Ever since he saw that photo on the newspaper, he knew that that was the ticket to his freedom. And so he swam, until he reached the shore, from where he disapparated.

* * *

The Weasleys were running late as usual for the Hogwarts Express, which was standing currently on platform 9 and 3/4.

'Ron, will you come down or do you not wish to go school this year?' his mother yelled from the living room.

'Yes mom, I'm coming. Scabbers is again behaving weird. Look at him. He's so pale.'

'Of course, he's so pale. He's so old, honesty Ronald.' interjected Hermione.

'Well I hope he doesn't die and the way your cat looks at it I am more afraid of him dying by becoming someone's meal rather than old age. Look at how scared he is in the cat's presence'

'Its been like this before she came to stay here, Ron' said Ginny.

'You can't do anything about old age and as for crookshanks, well you can't do anything about animal nature. Just take care of scabbers and he should be fine.'

'Fine my ass' Ron mumbled under his breath. Although apparently loud enough for his mum.

'Ronald Weasley! Mind your language. Now, if we're all ready, we will leave for Kings Cross'. Hearing this, both Hermione and Ginny snickered behind their hands.

* * *

'MASS MURDERER ESCAPES AZKABAN' read the newspaper the day after the escape. The news took the wizarding Britain by storm. The prison was notorious for stealing people's sanity in the first month alone, then how was it that Sirius Black escaped it; not only that, but he was the first person to have ever done so. It just increased the terror people felt by the name of Sirius Black who was not only called the right hand of you-know-who but he had also conspired in the murders of the Potters and personally killed the 12 muggles and his own friend Peter Pettigrew.

Remus knew it was not a good news, he was unable to think of how or why he didn't escape for 12 years and only now did it. He shared the concern with Pierre and Adrian and with the help of ministry got some aurors placed at Beauxbatons. The vigilance had also increased all over France.

There was a chance that he may come for Harry. Thinking of Harry, he was again reminded about what he had learned from Pierre when he brought Harry from England. He simply could not believe why his best friend would be involved in such a thing. He was thankful that Pierre had brought Harry with him. He shuddered to think what would have happened if Sirius had been successful in taking the baby, but there was also confusion as to why hadn't Sirius killed Harry immediately. Did he plan to corrupt the boy and make him fight for the Death Eaters?

The disturbing news had another disturbing part attached to it. Minister Fudge had ordered the dementors to patrol the country until Black was found. Was the man insane? Didn't he understand the effects dementors had on people and to make them travel the entire country; as if it wasn't bad enough they existed in the first place. Well the man would never be accused of having a brain in the first place.

Whatever the case, he would just have to make sure that Harry remained safe here.

* * *

This year Harry had been told some more details about his parents, relating to their last couple of years. It was slightly disturbing to hear that his dad had been such a bully and his mum had loathed him all her Hogwarts life. Except for her last year when she started showing interest in him and they finally started dating. But more disturbing than that, was that his dad had been involved in some shady business with some of the crooks of the wizarding Britain. The crooks were not very rich like Malfoy and that's why the most suitable to do business with, since they had no blackmail material.

He never would have thought this but he was slightly ashamed of his father. Remus said his mother probably had no idea about it. Even he himself had no idea about it; only Sirius ever knew and Pierre found out during his research. Atleast, his mum had been a good person with high morals as far as Remus was concerned.

He knew instantly that this year had to be an interesting one, given that the his parents' betrayer and his godfather and escaped the prison that had never been escaped before. He just didn't want it to affect his family in any way. His mother had already been worried after his first year and now he could see clearly that she was scared of losing her only son. It would sound stupid, but he had inherited or at least acquired his sensitive behavior from his mum. He reassured her the best he could, that he would always be her son and he would not die; of course, the child's words could only have so much effect. But it was nice to see that she was somewhat relieved and was better controlling herself at least in front of everyone else.

* * *

The term had progressed as usual for everyone at Hogwarts, although everyone was still scared; what if Black came to the castle? He certainly had no problem escaping Azkaban, what would make him stop here?

Everyone had been extremely terrified, after it had been found out that Sirius Black had sneaked into the Gryffindor dormitory and came very close to killing Ron. The Ministry had placed a few dementors at the school after that incident. And even otherwise, the overall Hogwarts security had been increased. Everyone thought that Black would have gone after Harry to finish off his master's work, but he came to Hogwarts. Everyone assumed that it must have been his killing rage and he wanted to demonstrate the consequences of fraternising with the enemy of the Dark Lord by killing children.

This much was clear though, that he was a very dangerous killer and that everyone would have to take extreme precautions to not become his next target.

* * *

He couldn't believe himself, he was this close to his freedom when that stupid red-haired boy woke up. He was about to kill the rat and then take the transformed body to exonerate himself but the plan had failed. Not only that, but the security had been tightened around the castle. His only current company was the furry cat that belonged to the muggleborn witch from Gryffindor.

Now he would have to wait for some time before the security became lax again and this time he would not waste fantasizing about what it would be like to be free. Instead he would focus upon the task, and get the hell out of there. He also considered capturing the traitor alive. And after he was free, he would consider going to France to Harry to tell him that he was his godfather. If he would be lucky, Remus wouldn't have remembered that he was also his godfather.

* * *

Olympe Maxime sat in her office feeling like a puppet, once again, at the hands of one manipulative bastard of a headmaster of Hogwarts. He had somehow convinced the English Minister to restart the horrendously dangerous Triwizard Tournament the next year and the fool that he was known as outside England, he accepted and somehow convinced Bulgarian Minister.

Now with the added pressure from Bulgaria, England had a substantial power in its hand. With two of the three major schools in Europe (because Durmstrang was a part of Bulgaria) at one side, the French Minister had no choice but to acquiesce with the requests of everyone in the international community. And this meant that her school would have to participate in the stupid student-killing tournament. She would have to improve the standards of teaching and defense learning at her school, if her students were to have any chance of even surviving the tournament. It was a regular occurrence for all the students to get killed in a triwizard tournament. Atleast, her teachers were qualified for teaching. With any luck, they might even win the tournament.

* * *

Later, near the end of the year, the news reached France that Sirius Black had found out the real traitor Peter Pettigrew hiding inside the 3rd year boys dorm disguised as a pet rat, which he could convert himself into illegally. After a real trial, Sirius had been exonerated obviously and given compensation for the injustice and Pettigrew had been given the Dementor's kiss because they didn't want the rat to slip through their fingers again, not to mention, after knowing that he had everyone fooled for 12 years, everyone was particularly furious over the issue.

After spending a month in St Mungos for both physical and mental recovery (since he had been affected less than everyone else, he needed less time), it had been announced that the official guardian of Harry Potter was coming to France to pick him up at the start of the summer break.

Everyone let the English people believe that Sirius would be allowed to come and take Harry to England, not they were lying, they just didn't tell them the other details of what would happen when Sirius came to France.

* * *

Albus was furiously thinking over what to do. He had no say in Sirius' life whatsoever because he had not vouched for him all those years ago, not that he knew about his innocence. If he had known, he would not have uselessly thrown him away like that, afterall he was a supporter of his Order of Phoenix. But now, he wanted to go to France to retrieve his godson. How to explain the rash man that it was not safe to go there. He was afraid that either they would not give Harry back or do something else to Sirius. When asked about why he was so wary of the French, he had deflected the question and finally relented; he did not want everyone to know about his meddling, of course; but what was he to do when people were trying to be too smart and harming themselves.

He let him go, after telling him one last time to be careful of what he does and says when in France. It wouldn't do to have them on his case for one more thing. It would just increase the mistrust.

* * *

Everything had been planned for Sirius' visit to France. They had asked for him to come and retrieve Harry and as an added bonus, the Ministry people will also be able to meet one of the unsung heroes of the previous war. When Sirius arrived at the Ministry, immediately magic-restraining cuffs had been put on him on Remus' request, knowing that he was an animagus too. And then he was led to a room under a petrificus charm, where high-ranking offcials were sitting on a raised bench on either side of a high-backed chair upon which was sitting a person with serious face. It looked an awful lot like the Wizengamot in Britain, and with a jolt he realised that it couldn't be anything good.

'Sirius Black, you are charged with ..' began the man sitting next to the big chair. After reciting the list compiled with the help of Pierre's report, he asked 'how do you plead?'

Sirius was flabbergasted. How a nice day took a turn like this? One minute he was going to meet his godson, the next he was being charged with crimes he knew he committed but he never thought would be found out and that too by the French. In a heated voice, to display confidence, he said 'What is the meaning of this? Do you even know what are you playing with here? I demand that I be released this instant. You cannot force a respectable citizen to such a disgrace.'

'I don't think you realise your position Mr Black. You are in France and in no position for making any demands. It will be better if you answer the question, otherwise you will be forced to answer with Veritaserum. But if you accept the crimes it will save us some time, money and Veritaserum.'

Realising his position, he said 'Not guilty' obviously not considering that he may be asked questions under Veritaserum where more truths will be spilled.

Only after the trial was over, did he realise his folly in not admitting the crimes outright. At least, he would not have been portrayed as a character-less, despicable man again and that too along with his best friend.

He not only admitted to his illegal dealings with the crooks of the society (where he would help them with escaping the law if they helped him and James with their services), he also admitted their procurement of love potions and administering them to many girls throughout their last 3 years and then having sex with them (and then obliviating them) including lily, although James was the only one who ever had sex with her, but that too was due to the love potion. He admitted to obliviating Remus of the knowledge, that he was also a godfather of Harry.

But the best piece of information was that he had also raped (with the help of love potion) several girls in France when he visited them once after graduation, with James for celebration. This would ensure France's right to imprison the despicable man in the French magical prison, which although would not affect sanity of prisoners, yet it was much more difficult to escape due to the various creatures, that used both the physical and magical senses to detect the prisoner, patrolling the prison. He would need not be deported and the ICW would also support France.

* * *

Only 4 outsiders were allowed inside of the Wizengamot apart from Remus, who was the main interrogator after the formalities were done. The 4 people were Harry, his parents and Adrian, for support to his friend. They had been sitting in a corner that been disillusioned so that they wouldn't be a distraction to the trial.

Harry, who had been sitting between his parents, could not believe what he was hearing about his birth father. Sure, he had accepted that he was slightly loose on the moral scale, but he couldn't have imagined that he would have been such a bastard that he would rape his mother just to fulfill his sick desires not to mention the other witches. Not only that, they had tried to keep his actual godfather away from him.

He turned towards his mother and buried his head between her shoulder and her bosom, drawing comfort from her. Pierre wrapped his arms around them both. Soon enough, his mother started feeling the slight shakes from his sobs and felt the wetness of his tears below her shoulders. She held him tight to her, comforting him and softly speaking to him, as he wept for his birth mother and her life.

He had never known her but from what Remus had told him, he knew that she had loved him very much and doted on him. And now he came to know, that she didn't even have her own freedom in her last few years and was practically a slave of a fiend. He couldn't express his grief or rage in any words. He very much wanted for James to be alive, so that he could personally kill both him and Sirius at the same time. The only good about this whole issue would be that Sirius would be spending the rest of his life in French prison as that was French law dictated. Not to mention, his and James' 'heroic' deeds would be in newspapers all over the world.

After some time, Harry slowly extracted himself from his parents' embrace. Darcey asked him, 'You ok, honey?'

With slightly downcast eyes, he nodded.

'Let's go home, then' she said to Harry, with a look towards Pierre.

While they were moving towards the exit of the Ministry, she couldn't help but feel that it had been a bad idea for them to cave in to Harry's request for coming here. She felt that she had failed as a mother this time; what if it left a permanent mark on him. She would have to pay extra attention towards Harry this summer.

* * *

Albus once again realised that the boy was simply not worth the trouble, when the newspaper came this morning detailing Sirius' trial and subsequent imprisonment. Thankfully, despite his fears, there was nothing in the newspaper against him. No one had accused him of having been in close association with the people who had carried out such activities; after all Remus was their best friend and apparently even he didn't know about them completely.

But the boy could be more trouble to him in France than England, not to mention he also had a prophecy to fulfill. And that is why, he pulled some strings and arranged the Triwizard tournament. The tournament would be for students of age but everyone above 14 would be invited to stay during the year. This way, when harry's name would come out of the goblet he would not have a full-proof alibi to prove his innocence and if the mood of the people was set right, Harry's credibility would be lost and he would have to look for help from, perhaps the headmaster of the school who is playing host. And once he got control of him, he would steer him towards Voldemort where he would fight him to death fulfilling the prophecy and then he would kill Voldemort himself, thereby becoming the person with the claim of defeating 2 dark lords.

But he knew that before the Voldemort's rise and Harry's faceoff with him, he would have to find out the number of the horcruxes and destroy them. He was very proud of himself for figuring out the way to enter the chamber, bringing Ms Weasley back and destroying the diary horcrux (which indicated the secret of Voldemort's immortality) that had been controlling her. He had to hush up so many details and still give enough information to keep the press satisfied, that he had a bad headache for the whole day. His teacher's was just collateral damage in the ultimate fight against the dark lord.

* * *

Harry was not the only one who shedded tears because of the trial. Remus was drinking in his apartment, his eyes bloodshot, tears leaking down his face. He had almost forgotten about her but it seemed that in the last couple of years, everyone had made it their objective to remind him of her. And now he had the added responsibility of telling Harry who had participated in the actual ceremony for his godparents, the ceremony Lily had conducted in private when she had figured out that she was under love potion. Obviously, they both had been found out and obliviated, but not the ceremony. No one knows that Lily had faked the public ceremony of accepting godparents for her son.

This meant that 'she' would already know that she is his godmother but she still didn't come, even for Harry. This made him want to hide the information about Harry's godmother from him, but he knew he couldn't do that because that decision was not his to make. It was probably time that he told his friends about his possibly unrequited love. Besides, Lily would probably want her son to know of her secret best friend and his godmother.

* * *

AN: I hope that James and Sirius came out to be the type of vile, despicable creatures I was trying to portray them as. I also hope Harry's grief looked genuine. Any reviews regarding this will be much appreciated and very helpful for improvement of the story.


	5. The Dangers of World Cup

Chapter 5

Pierre felt like hitting his head against a wall. The old fool had again created a problem for them. And this time he had found an excuse to make Harry come to England, or more specifically Hogwarts. He had argued that anyone above the age of 14 could benefit from seeing the types of challenges the competitors would be facing and simultaneously create bonds between the European countries, thus achieving International Unity.

It didn't fool him then, and it didn't fool him now. But who could explain that to the British Ministry. Apparently they felt that the death toll wasn't good enough in the past.

At least, they had some time to prepare for this. Ever since the end of the first year, he and his friends knew that their children, especially Harry, would need protection more than others, not just because of the idiocy of Hogwarts Headmaster but also because of the fear of Voldemort's return. And so all the adults started to train the kids in all sorts of magic. Between the five of them, they were able to train them the way they needed to be. In holidays time, everyone took time to teach them except for Remus and Adrian, who taught them during the school time.

This summer, their pattern continued except, Remus would be giving them animagus training along with their regular schedule. Although he himself was not an animagus, he remembered the findings and experiments of his ex-friends. Studying along with his friends, he had become quite intelligent at tranfiguration himself.

* * *

Harry's doubts were right about his best friend's attitude. As soon as her puberty stopped as was clearly visible by her growth stopping, she definitely became much more pleasant to him, her old self but in a better way. And this summer, she was spending much more time with him. Currently, they were both sitting in his room and chatting. For a while, he had been worried that she didn't want him as her best friend anymore.

The puberty at least had one good consequence. In the last two years, he had been highly confused by what he was feeling whenever Gabrielle was near him. Now her looks made it obvious, that he had started to like her two years ago but couldn't figure out earlier. Now it was just as clear as daylight that she was an extremely beautiful girl, even more than her sister; to him anyway. It was possible that he was biased towards her not just because she was his best friend and confidante but also his crush.

He shuddered to think what would happen if his family knew; what if Gabrielle knew? He didn't want to think how embarrassed he would be by that. When he came out of his thoughts, he realised that he had been staring right at her when he was thinking about her and so to save himself he quickly said the first thing that came to his mind.

'Why are you so tall?'

'Oh Not this again.' Gabrielle moaned.

'I mean seriously, I am the tallest boy in our batch and you are still taller than me.'

'Yes, but that is because I have already reached my maturity and you still haven't had your final growth spurt. Besides, you are only 5'5'', that is a good height.'

'Yeah, three inches shorter than my best friend who happens to be a witch. Really good height.' He said sarcastically.

'A veela, not a witch. That is the reason for my height.'

Knowing that he had distracted her enough from his watching her, he watched the clock and saw that it was time to go for their first animagus training with Remus.

'Its time to go. Remus must be here.'

As they made their way down, Harry tended to stay behind her to watch her silver-blonde hair bounce as she walked down the stairs. He could not understand why he had not noticed before that he liked her. And now that he did, it was as if he did not want to stay away from her.

When they reached to the room that had been emptied specifically to train the now-teenagers, they found that their sisters and Remus were already there.

'Ok, let's start. Now what have all of you found out in your research about the animagus.' Remus asked in his usual teacher-voice.

'Any person can have at maximum one normal animal form, and one magical animal form' Fleur said.

'Correct, but the person has to be powerful enough to be able to handle the amount of magic the animal has. Otherwise magic itself rejects the person's attempt to become the magical animal. Also the normal and magical animal form are somehow related. Anything on the animagus form of Veela?'

'Its always some sort of flying animal, and always magical, but they can't always transform for the same reason as normal witches and wizards.' Harry said. Remus gave him a small look that he missed.

'Correct again. Now before the transformation, you need to find out your form. For that, you will need to use your occlumency training, but instead of defending your brain, you will have to open it up. First you will clear your head of outside disturbances, then you will relax your mind and feel your magical presence which you can find by concentrating on the part which releases pulses while doing magic. After that, you will try to detach your mind from your magical presence so that only your instincts remain. When that happens, you will be able to see your animagus form. To know whether you are allowed a magical form, focus on the feeling which you get from your instincts. They will be able to tell you that.'

'Alright, so let's get started.' Remus observed them for the half an hour or so, while they all were seemingly asleep but inwardly conscious of everything.

When they woke up, Remus asked them about what they saw.

'I think my form is a jaguar. And I do have a magical form, but it has six legs so I am assuming its the wampus cat.' Harry said.

'Makes sense. Your wandcore is a heart string from a wampus cat and you have great speed and agility.' replied Remus. 'What about you Abella?'

'I think it is some sort of constrictor; I will have to look for it in the book. And I think I do have a magical animal form, but it was as if it was clouded.'

'That means you are currently not ready for your magical form. With enough training, you should be able to take the form. And since you have a snake form, it is possible that you may convert into an ashwinder, an occamy or .. no a basilisk isn't possible for a human. Only an ashwinder or an occamy.' said Remus, 'and you two?'

'I can become a griffin.' Gabrielle said enthusiastically. 'The same' added Fleur.

After that, Remus told them of the way they could try to change their body parts one at a time. They concluded the class for the day, and went to bed.

* * *

In a month's time, they were able to convert into their forms. But Harry had still to do his wampus cat transformation, and Abella had yet to discover her magical form. In another month's time, Harry even got down his wampus cat form. This summer, they were also taught the patronus charm. Harry got it before Abella and the Veela sisters never needed to do the patronus charm since they were not affected by the foul creatures because they were, by nature, creatures of fire whereas dementors tried to induce coldness and fear in their victims. They only needed to throw their fire at the dementors to keep them at bay.

Since this year the Quidditch World Cup was being held at England, they all decided to go for the finals. They had been invited along with the French Minister by the English Minister, obviously for politics and better relations. And so they went.

They spent an extra day before the World Cup at the camp, so they wouldn't arrive in the peak time. Harry and Gabrielle spent the day just wandering around, looking at the various merchandise at the small stalls and they also bought omnioculars for watching the match. They were asked to stay close to the camp so they didn't get lost. And when the sun set, they all ate dinner and retired for the day.

The next day they made their to the Quidditch stadium which was made by digging a giant hole in the Earth. It could easily contain 100,000 people and it was full to the capacity. When they were taking their seats in the VIP area adjacent to VVIP area, Remus got a glimpse of his first and only love on the arms of her husband Lucius Malfoy along with her son. Once again, he felt the jealousy towards the death eater who had gotten the woman he loved.

Harry watched his Uncle look towards the adjacent area where a black haired woman was seated with a pale-blonde man and an equally pale-blonde boy, both acting as if they owned the place. He noticed that the woman, although looking beautiful, regal and slightly haughty, was not looking happy in the slightest. He turned again towards Remus and saw that he had a look of longing on his face, and with a surprise he realised that she must be Remus' girlfriend from school days, her mother's best friend and his godmother.

He nudged Remus and told him with his eyes that he knew where he was looking and knew who she was. Remus only slightly nodded and then they all seated to watch the match.

As more than half the stadium had predicted, Irish chasers scored the most number of times and Bulgarian seeker caught the snitch, but in the end Ireland won. A lot of money could be seen exchanging hands.

All the spectators made their way towards the campsite. Late into the night, shouting was heard. Pierre checked what was going on and asked everyone to leave.

'Its the death eaters. We have to go now. Fleur, Abella, Harry and Gabrielle stay together. Run towards the forest and take cover their unless someone finds you.' Pierre ordered. He took both his friends towards the source of the sounds. It was probably a good thing that Darcey and Apolline had no interest in Quidditch and had insisted on staying home.

Harry immediately took Gabrielle's hand and started running to the trees nearby, following their sisters closely. Many-a-times they tripped over something or other. In the rush, they got separated from their sisters. Soon they reached deep into the forests where they were completely alone. They slowed down and then came to a stop. There was complete silence, almost eerily so. Suddenly, there was a flash and curses flew towards them. Making use of his agility, Harry quickly ducked taking Gabrielle along with him.

Thinking it was a single curse, Harry changed to wampus and quick as a bullet, made his way over to the source of what he knew was a cutting curse. They had tried to attack Gabrielle and they would have to pay for it. As soon as he saw that the person was wearing a mask, he immediately attacked on the person's wand hand. After having his wand dropped, the death eater had his neck grabbed by the extremely strong jaw of the wampus choking him slowly to his death.

After making sure that the death eater was dead, he changed back to human and cleaned himself. He made his way back to Gabrielle, but he couldn't find her there. He panicked and immediately changed back to jaguar so that his approaching magic won't be detected by the death eaters if he crossed their paths. It was a bit difficult because it wasn't as fast as wampus, but soon he saw a glint of silver out of the corner of his eyes. He instantly but silently made his way over there.

He saw that a couple of death eaters were there and Gabrielle was already naked from above waist and bruised and bleeding from various places. One of the death eaters was currently was trying to get her out of her skirt. In a fit of rage, he immediately changed back to his wampus. The death eaters sensed him and turned, but before they could do anything, Harry had, with a lightning speed, slashed their throats in two very powerful strikes and their heads were dangling from their body before they fell to the ground twitching.

He changed back to human, and then kneeled down beside her and revived her. Even when conscious, she was very weak from all the blood loss and could not do anything more than give out a moan. He leaned towards her and took her in her arms and then tried to find a place among the trees where they could be hidden unless someone came their way to retrieve them.

He put her down, and then observed her carefully. It looked as if her top had been scratched away from her body. They had clearly done it while she was still conscious and was fighting them. Because of his error in judgement, his best friend had faced an assault and come very close to rape. Thinking that, he could not hold back and he broke down completely. He took her head in his lap and hugged her head while apologising to her again-unconscious form. He stopped the blood flow with a charm that he had been taught. With the adrenaline rush gone, sleep claimed him in that position with him.

He woke again a couple hours later to the sound of calls, and realising that he hadn't even covered her upper body, he conjured a cloth to wrap her in. After hearing his own father's voice, he immediately called back and picked up Gabrielle and came out of the spot. Pierre took Gabrielle from him. Even though he didn't want to let go of her, he knew that he was too tired. They made their way to the medical tent, and Harry laid down there, the next thing he knew he woke up in his room. He immediately went down to ask about Gabrielle. After getting assured that she was fine now, he ate food and took bath. He asked why was he unconscious for so long. Pierre answered that since he was young and since he was a new animagus, it drained him more than normal.

After that he made his way for the Delacour house, when he reached there, both Adrian and Apolline thanked him for saving their daughter. They had been told half of what had happened by Gabrielle so Harry narrated the rest of the details of the night to them. Apolline hugged him tightly after he was finished. It wasn't that it was odd in itself for Apolline to hug Harry, but Harry felt awkward for being thanked by his aunt for saving his own best friend. He shrugged off their gratitude easily enough and then with their permission, went up to Gabrielle's room.

He saw that she was studying on her desk and when she heard him entering, she turned and with a smile she came to him and hugged him. This time, he felt a lot awkward because the previous time he had held her she had been half naked and in a very vulnerable position. His liking for her definitely didn't help matters.

'Thank you Harry, for saving me.' Gabrielle said, with as much sincerity as possible. She released him to see that he was immensely relieved that she was alright.

'I am really sorry Gabrielle. If I had been more aware, you would not have been injured and... I am really sorry.' Seeing that his eyes were shining with tears, she immediately embraced him again.

'Hey, I'm OK, Harry. See, I'm fine. You saved me. It doesn't matter that they got me for some time. It isn't your fault that they tried to harm me, is it? It's OK Harry.' Harry composed himself after a few moments. On being asked about the night's events, he again told her of some of the events that took place that night, leaving out the gruesome parts.

Seeing that he had a chance now, Harry asked the question he had been meaning to ask since a long time,

'Gabrielle, would you like to be my girlfriend?'

Gabrielle gaped at him as if he had grown another head, at least that was what it looked like to him. Sensing her hesitation, he knew that she wasn't interested in him and as if to play it off lightly, he tried to smile in a casual way. He saw that her expression changed a couple of times and finally with a regretful look, she said,

'I'm sorry, Harry, I like you but not like that.' Harry shrugged off in a casual way, 'It's OK. You can't make someone like you.' He knew that he liked her, but only with her rejection did it become clear just how much. Even as he said that, he wanted to run away and lock himself in a room and punch the walls. After sharing a moment of awkward silence, he said goodbye and left the house. A thousand thoughts were running inside his head, not the least of which was 'does she like someone else?' And with thought came an insane amount of jealousy. He was her best friend for so long, he cared for her and helped her and gave her his time whenever needed and now he will lose her possibly even as a best friend.

All these thoughts made him do exactly as he had planned, he locked himself inside his room, and punched the walls to satisfaction and then healed the knuckles as much as possible. The pain was there but the wounds were not visible. He saw his sister glancing towards him several times during the dinner. He must have done something out of the ordinary. So he tried to act as if nothing was the matter and went to bed that night for a restless sleep with his hopes for having Gabrielle as his girlfriend crushed.

* * *

The next day, he decided to talk with Remus about his godmother. So he flooed to his apartment when he knew he would be home. Remus told him that the woman at the world cup, Narcissa was indeed his godmother but she did not even look their way.

He also told Harry about the upcoming Triwizard tournament and asked him to ask his father to tell his sister and the Delacour girls about it as they will all be staying at Hogwarts from the end of the October month till the end of the year.

* * *

AN: I don't know how you got that but it was nice guess 'primus light bringer'. I think it was because of the 'wife of a death eater' hint.

Anyway, Please keep reviewing, anonymously or not.


	6. Going to Hogwarts

AN: I think I have been going a bit slow in the story, so I will speed up things, only slightly.

I want to thank for the positive reviews. Also if you are leaving some negative review, please mention your recommendation for the changes. Without that, your review will not be of any help, either to you or to me.

* * *

Chapter 6

Things had not changed much between Harry and Gabrielle. They almost never went to each others' rooms, though they did come to each others' homes to pretend that everything was alright, a silent pact between the two. Earlier, it had seemed to Harry that someone else will be the reason for the deterioration of their friendship, but now it seemed that he was quite capable of that on his own.

Not spending time with her, not talking to her, not laughing with her were getting very difficult for Harry. But he knew that now their friendship could only be repaired by Gabrielle; for all his bravery, now he was not able to talk to her. It was a good thing that the school was opening in only a few days, there will be plenty of distraction available, not to mention two months later they will be going to Hogwarts anyway.

* * *

Harry breathed a sigh of relief after reaching his dorm. The last week had been more difficult than he had thought. His sister, perceptive as always when it comes to him, had approached him one day and asked about his moodiness. He had successfully deflected the question, but he knew his sister was not convinced. She was his sister after all. Even his mother had started giving him odd looks, which confirmed his theory that he wasn't that great of an actor as he had previously thought, or maybe his family knew him way too much.

Either way, he started spending more time in the woods near his home, on the pretext of practicing his animagus form, which was actually true, so that they wouldn't be worried about his safety because those woods housed magical creatures. Most of the magical animals feared wampus cat enough to not go even near it, and he could get away quickly enough from the more dangerous ones.

It even kept his head clear. When he was insides his home, he felt very restricted almost trapped, probably a side effect of his first rejection, and the situation was only made worse by his sister and mother being on alert around him. But now that he was here, he was determined to try again and this time, he would be prepared. He would keep a close eye on Gabrielle and show her subtly that he had the qualities that she was looking for in a boyfriend, and that she need not look for anyone else.

* * *

When it had been announced that this year triwizard tournament was being organized, Remus hadn't been too terribly worried. The worry came with the full news that every fourth year and above will be going to Hogwarts. But it also meant that most of the teachers would be going to Hogwarts with the students including him and Pierre. The junior students, as were first to third years called, would be getting a few temporary teachers and since the syllabus was fairly easy, most of them would be taking two to three subjects to teach. The replacements were rather easy to find, since a few graduates who hadn't been recruited yet for any jobs and were looking for teaching as a profession, this was a good start.

Sometimes, it really bewildered Remus to see that France's magical society was so flexible, so that everyone was accommodated, on the other hand, England's magical society, or specifically wizarding society, had been in the same state for so many centuries that nowadays, it was considered one of the most backward in the entire world.

In fact, the situation was so bad that Remus was actually worried even though he and Pierre would be there for the safety of the kids. He could only hope that it worked out for the best.

* * *

It had been two weeks since school had started. In that time, it was announced that everyone 17 year old and above who wished to participate in the triwizard tournament could get extra lessons in training for the tournament based on the knowledge of the previous tournament. Of course, there would be extra charges for it and they had been warned beforehand that the tournament was extremely dangerous and even fatal, but that didn't stop teenagers hunger to prove themselves even if they were at the end of their adolescence. Almost everyone eligible had signed up for it, including Fleur and Abella.

They had 10 hours of extra training every week. It may not seem like much but the surliness of the students would prove otherwise. Her sister, Fleur wasn't one of those. She was always an intelligent student and as such, the only problem for her was time management and not the actual training. Her other sister was on the other end of the spectrum; being ambitious meant that time management was never a problem for her, on the other hand, she was having trouble with the actual training as it was quite tough, but having a rock-strong determination and Fleur for a friend had its merits.

But Gabrielle couldn't understand what was it about this year that had made _Harry_ so eccentric. He could not even participate in the tournament for which they would all be going. Of course, it was quite clear to everyone in both the families that he was practically being forced to go to Hogwarts by making the fourth year and above come to Hogwarts.

So why was he behaving in such a way. First he wanted her to be his girlfriend and she could see pretty clearly that he also fell victim to the Veela beauty like everyone else before him. And then he tried to play it off as if she was just anyone who he could do time waste with. She was very upset with his behavior. It was as if the whole best friend thing was just a drama on his part. And now he was doing stupid things that boys generally got involved in, trying to impress girls. Whereas earlier, she felt interested but insecure in spending time with him, now she was less interested and even more repulsed by his activities.

She had never thought that her best friend would one day this much interested in people's looks, but she guessed she was wrong.

* * *

The day had finally come to go to Hogwarts and Abella couldn't be more excited and angered about this. Of course, the anger was on behalf of her brother and the excitement was obvious for the triwizard tournament. She saw Fleur come into the room of the carriage that they would be sharing for the rest of the year. She immediately stood up.

'Aren't you excited, Fleur?'

Fleur rolled her eyes. 'Of course I am, but unlike you I can handle the excitement within the confines of my mind.'

'Shut up, this is so exciting. Imagine if one of us gets selected, although an obvious choice would be you. You would be famous not only in France but so many other countries, and even more so if you win. I hope I get selected.' She added the last part with slightly dreamy eyes.

Fleur rolled her eyes for the millionth time that day, while smacking Abella on the back of her head, effectively breaking her out of her reverie. Abella pouted at Fleur and then got busy again with her daydreaming.

* * *

Fleur, on the other hand, was only going to participate in the tournament because she knew that she was very intelligent and that if selected, she would have a very good chance of winning the tournament for Beauxbatons and France. Still, she couldn't complain about the excitement of her friend. Abella was very ambitious and outgoing; it was only obvious that she would try to win the tournament.

She was more concerned about the tournament than anything, mainly for Harry. Going to Hogwarts was going to be a real danger for him, and not just because Voldemort wasn't dead, but because the Ministry and Dumbledore were so stooped that she was sure that they would have kidnapped Harry right from France if they didn't fear the backlash from ICW. But with Harry right in the lion's den, there was a lot on the stake right now.

Turning her attention to Harry's personal behavior, she was a bit concerned for him. She had always had intellectual conversation with him on a regular basis. Nowadays, he was a bit distracted and most of the time when he was talking to her, it was utter nonsense. She wondered what was going on with the mature boy, who had always had time for a decent chat with her and why he was behaving like a typical teenage boy.

On occasion, she had seen him trying to have a weird conversation with her sister and she couldn't help but think that he liked her and was, unfortunately, going for the most immature way possible to make her like him. She would have to find time to talk some sense into him.

As she decided to have a talk with her brother, the carriage took off for Hogwarts, Scotland.

* * *

Harry and his roommate were sitting by the window talking, when they saw Earth slowly come into view again after the flight above the clouds. In the distance, they could see the outline of a tall and imposing castle. It did look beautiful situated in a valley, with its lush green surroundings and a nearby lake. But there was a taint on this picture, knowing who is the in-charge of the school. Still, he was determined to not let his stay at this magnificent castle be spoiled because of some old delusional fools. He would see everything here with Remus, and know a bit more about the school where his mother and her friends studied.

As the view of the castle came closer, he could see that they were going to be landing very close to a straight patch of land cleared probably for the carriage, very close to the forest, the forbidden forest. He could also see that students from Durmstrang had already arrived. Their flag was visible on the ship, situated on the banks of the lake, and the last of their students could be seen entering the castle.

When they exited the carriage, he could see that Hogwarts also had a very large teacher. Remus had told them about him, but watching in reality was always better than just description. He could see that the half-giant wore a kind expression on his face. But he would like to maintain his distance from him, given that he was utterly devoted to Dumbledore.

Then they were led off to the Entrance Hall. After waiting for some time, they were led inside to the Great Hall, which was easily the largest room he had ever seen. He could see that it had been magically expanded for the guests, because there were eight tables, all of them half occupied by Hogwarts students, and four of them half occupied by Durmstrang students. It was visible from the robes of the students that every house had been divided into two tables and Durmstrang students would be occupying one of the tables and Beauxbatons students would be occupying the other so that all the houses would be sitting with both the schools. Interestingly, no Durmstrang and Beauxbatons student would be sitting on the same table.

It so happened that the table that Harry and the other fourth years were occupying was the Gryffindor table, the house of his mother and Remus, though he wouldn't have minded terribly, if they had to sit on any other table.

When he started watching the Gryffindors sitting at his table to look for potential friends in the foreign environment, after all that was the original intention behind the tournament, his eyes rested on the Gryffindor sitting closest to the Beauxbatons students. He was a red-haired boy, with the most shabby looks possible, and that was excluding the robes he wore. But the most disgusting part about him was that, only half of his attention was towards eating, resulting in drooling, and the other half was towards staring at the closest Beauxbatons student with the most glazed and lecherous look possible. When he saw that the Gabrielle was sitting next to the drooling idiot, it made his blood boil. He wanted to smack the boy's face on the table and break his teeth. Unfortunately, he had to settle for glaring at him.

The only good thing about this was that, at least he wasn't staring at him like many boys and almost all of the girls were doing across the Hall. It confirmed his earlier suspicions that his first few days here were probably going to be even more trying than the starting of his second year when it was known to everyone that he was Harry Potter.

He heard the headmaster announcing about the tournament and the fact that tomorrow at this very time, the drawing of names would be done. Anyone who wished to participate in the tournament would have to submit their names before that time.

After they had been dismissed, Harry was finally distracted from the thoughts of strangulating the shabby looking boy and turned his attention towards the Hogwarts faculty. One of them, probably Severus Snape from the description, was looking at him almost all the time, and with a very strange look of curiosity, as if he were some puzzle to be solved. Given his early friendship with his mum and enmity with his dastardly father and his own hatred for his father, he guessed it made sense that greasy-looking professor would be interested to know him. Remus wasn't kidding with his description.

One of the faculty, an old stern-looking witch was watching him with a look of... pity? His guess was that she was probably Gryffindor Head of House, but it certainly didn't explain her looks towards him.

But the most striking professor was the one with a very strange eye and a thousand scars running all over his face. He gave the impression that trying to waste his time would be the very last thing a person could do. He looked very uncomfortable in this setting and had taken many swigs from his hip flask through the evening.

After concluding his thoughts for the Hogwarts faculty, his mind drifted towards the girl of his affections, who currently wasn't returning said affections. He had tried for two months in the school to get her attention but to no avail; now the opportunities had dropped even low for it. With all that would be going on around them this year, he wouldn't have enough time to get her alone or even to impress her.

It was getting more and more difficult with each passing day; he was sure that she was avoiding him and though it hurt, he was determined not to give up without having a single chance with her. But with this rate, he would definitely have to get help and he was not looking forward to asking Fleur. If she didn't help him, that would make it very awkward to ever talk to her again. And Merlin forbid, if he had to talk with Abella about this; he would not hear the end of it. When they were young, it had already been joked many times in both the homes about Harry and Gabrielle dating one day.

He would have to think of something, and fast; with more boys in the vicinity, the chances of losing Gabrielle had become exponentially higher. But that would have to wait for the next day, since he was very tired from the ride and then sitting through so many hours of announcements and information about the tournament, which he wasn't even interested in. By the end of the night, even trying to keep his eyes open were taking a toll.

* * *

AN: I want to explain Harry's actions. First of all, he is a teenager so his want and actions for getting a girlfriend are, even though weird, obvious. Second, she has been his best friend and he has liked her for quite some time, so it is not very far-fetched to say that he already loves her. He obviously loved her earlier, even though platonic, because she was his best friend so why not not-so-platonic now (after all it's been two years now since he started liking her). And third, since it was his first experience, so obviously the rejection must have hit hard.

Hopefully, that makes Harry believable.


	7. The fiasco and repercussions

Chapter 7

The day of the drawing of the names went pretty normal for Harry, at least until the actual drawing of the names. Except for a few hours, he spent most of his time inside his shared room in the carriage.

It wasn't that he didn't want to explore the mysterious castle and its hidden hallways and rooms, but the fact that he was gathering too much attention meant that he was only out in the morning and daytime, when he was sure that most, if not all, of the students would be in some or other class. But this didn't mean that he was left completely alone.

The idiot, who was making Gabrielle uncomfortable last night, was trying to get too close to Harry, clearly a fanboy and a shabby one too. He maintained his distance from him while trying to maintain his cool at the boy's 'friendly' attempts. Clearly, the boy had no idea what impression he was giving off as soon as he opened his mouth. It wouldn't do to ruin the image of his school by punching a boy from a different school.

But the others were better. They also wanted to know the boy-who-lived while trying to maintain some dignity, especially Hufflepuffs. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were not as subtle; the Gryffindors apparently had no inhibitions about anything and the Ravenclaws treated him like he was a subject of some human experiment. He liked even Slytherins in this aspect, mainly because they didn't disturb him at all, well mostly. A couple of girls, a year or two younger than him had approached him, only to be rebuked by the elder Slytherins, which helped him understand Remus' advice of staying away from most Slytherins.

At the time of dinner, he again left for the castle with his friends. They took seats again almost in the same order, but he was satisfied to see that Gabrielle had chosen a seat far away from that idiot Ron. After dinner was finished, the tables were changed a bit so that the goblet was in the center of the Hall and there were tables on either sides of it (like in the movies).

The lights from the candles and torches were dimmed and there was almost an eerie silence before the goblet's flame roared with light and spit out the first champion's name. 'The Durmstrang champion is... Viktor Krum.' At this announcement, half the hall started cheering while the rest politely clapped. It seemed that the Quidditch was not just muscle, although the actual caliber will be tested against the other champions in the tournament.

Again the flame roared, and spit out the name of another champion.

'The Beauxbatons champion is... Fleur Delacour.' Harry was amongst those who cheered the loudest for the girl, including Abella and Gabrielle. She got up elegantly, and walked to the same room in which the Durmstrang champion had gone just moments ago.

After the cheering stopped, during which Harry felt as if Dumbledore had glanced at him, the goblet spit out the third name with the same roar.

'The Hogwarts champion is... Cedric Diggory.' Again, almost half the hall cheered for the Hogwarts champion, which was obvious considering that he was the champion of the host school.

After he had gone, Dumbledore resumed speaking. 'Excellent, now we have our three champions, but only one will go down in the history, only one will win the triwizard tournament, and the reward will be this triwizard cup.' With a grand gesture, he magically lifted the cover off the trophy to be awarded to the winner, which was glowing.

But before he could continue speaking, the goblet's flame started swirling and with a final roar, it spit out a fourth parchment. Dumbledore caught it as usual, and he read out loud breaking the heavy silence which had settled in the air. 'Harry Potter'

Harry was stunned, no that would be an understatement. He was simply flabbergasted, how the hell had his name come out of the goblet? He was praying desperately that it was just a dream, and any moment now he would wake up. But when the call came for a second time, he knew he was trapped. He couldn't prove it, but he was sure that the headmaster had been somehow involved in this. He silently stood, and walked up to the Headmaster.

The walk couldn't have been longer. Despite his best efforts, he failed to look straight and turned his head and watched the severe looks on the faces of the students and teachers of the foreign schools, and looks of confusion on the faces of people from his own country. It was at least better than the other option. Students from the other two schools started protesting and calling him names, not the least of which was 'cheater'.

After a long time, he finally entered the room where the other champions had gone and the noises silenced. It seemed like the room was under the silencing charm; a good thing considering the names he was being called. When the other champions saw someone was coming, they all stood and paid attention, only to relax a bit upon seeing a younger student.

Fleur, upon seeing that he wasn't saying anything, asked him. 'Are they asking for us to come back?'

'No, the goblet..uh.. my name came out of it.'

'What? How?' After a moment of horrifying look on her face, she immediately adopted a stern look, that she reserved for whenever he or Gabrielle were upto something mischievous. She led him to a corner and after a moment of studying his face, she quietly, almost in a whispering tone, asked him.

'OK Harry, what are you talking about? And how can your name come out of the goblet?' As he opened his mouth to speak, they could hear sound of someone approaching. She let him go.

Dumbledore and Maxime approached him and started questioning him whether he had put his name in the goblet or not. A number of adults had followed them into the room, including McGonagall, Snape, weird-eye-man (whose name was Madeye as Remus had told him today), Durmstrang headmaster, a couple of high ranking officials, one of whom was almost jumping on his heels at the news that Harry was another champion and the other had a look of weariness on his face.

Karkaroff and McGonagall did not seemed to believe that he hadn't put his name in the cup, directly or indirectly, alongwith Dumbledore, because during his on-the-spot interrogation, he had insinuated a number of times that he was lying. Professor Maxime seemed outraged that they would dare question the honesty of a Beauxbatons student. Snape had a look of calculative curiosity on his face, much like last night. Ludo Bagman, the jumping baboon didn't matter. Mad-eye and Crouch seemed more concerned about his participation than anything. They had both a look of contemplation on their faces.

Finally, it was decided that since there was a binding magical contract in place, so Harry couldn't back out now, no matter how much he wanted to. They had also been told about the date of the third task, and the fact that it was designed to test their courage and their ability to think on their feet.

When they were finally leaving the room, he could see that the Durmstrang champion's frown had only grown. Hogwarts champion, on the other hand, looked like he was confused whether he should accept his statement about his involvement in the tournament or not. Finally, it seemed that he would be playing the by-stander role in this fiasco.

While he was walking towards their carriage, Fleur tapped on his shoulder and seeing that no one watching them, she again asked quietly, 'You didn't have anything to do with this, did you?'

'Of course not, Fleur. You-' He started quite loudly, but immediately quieted after seeing Fleur's hushing motion.

'Of course not, you know me. Why would I do something like this? I had already told you that I wan't interested in it, remember?' Harry said, assuming that he had told her, because he almost always talked to her about such decisions.

'No, you didn't'

'I didn't?'

'No'

After a moment of embarassment, Harry said, 'Well, its true, I am not interested in this tournament, honest'

'Well the only two possibilities are, either its Dumbledore's doing or one of Voldemort's minions. Either way, you will have to be careful Harry. No offence, but this tournament has been deadly in the past, and its no place for students of your age.'

'I know, it seems that I will have to train with you if I want to survive it.'

'That would be prudent. We will have a talk about this in the morning with Uncle Remus and your dad.'

'Hmm' Harry said non-commitedly.

They started walking towards the carriage in silence. When they entered, Fleur made a turn for her room, but before Harry could make a turn for his own room, a powerful smack resounded in the hall. Harry turned his head towards his assailant, and saw that Abella was standing there.

'You idiot. What were you thinking entering in the tournament like that? It is extremely dangerous and therefore, only for students of age. How can you become so selfish that you don't even think of people that love you?' She finished loudly, all the while gesturing angrily.

Before she could do or say anything else, Fleur stood between him and Abella. She explained the situation to her and told her that he hadn't entered himself. After some time, when she was calm enough, she could see that Harry would never do that. With a rather ashamed face, she faced Harry again, and said sorry, and immediately after that, she hugged him tight. Harry, even though initially upset that his sister who knew him so well would assume the worst about thim, immediately returned the hug with equal vigor. Abella held him even tighter, seeing that he so easily ignored that she had just smacked him for no reason at all.

'Sorry Harry, but I'm worried about you participating in this tournament.' She said in his ear softly.

'Its OK' Harry whispered against her shoulder, making her smile.

'Geez, thanks for your concern about my safety, bestie' Fleur broke the moment by her sarcastic comment, although she had a slight smile on her face.

After some playful conversation, they broke off to sleep.

* * *

The next day, it became clear to Harry just how much criticism and vitriol he would have to tolerate. And he was not looking forward to it at all. In the morning, as decided, he had talked with Remus, his dad, Madam Maxime and Fleur for the tournament. Madam Maxime had told them there was indeed no way to ignore a binding contract and he would have to compete. So they decided that Remus and Pierre would be helping them train, but the two teachers would be completely aloof from the information about the tournament, because they were friends and family to the two champions.

It had already been decided that the two schools would be using the number of empty classrooms in the castle for teaching their students. And while the breakfast and lunch would be in their respective ship and carriage, the dinner would be inside the Great Hall every single day. Both the arrangements meant that Harry would have to see a lot of the students from the other school.

And even though Fleur and Abella had believed him, he felt very alone because not everyone from their school believed him, and as fate would have it, Gabrielle was one of them. She had cornered him after his meeting with the adults, and just when he thought that she might finally consider him again, she ranted at him and told him in no uncertain terms that she would never be his girlfriend if he continued acting like an attention-seeker and a shallow person.

He decided at that point, that he had already been entered into the tournament, he might as well gain something out of it. He would prove that he was not just a lesser wizard, and that, had he been entered in the age category of his own, he would have won.

And so, he started studying and training diligently. He spent literally all of his free time in gaining more and more knowledge and skills. If it weren't for the tournament, he was sure that everyone would have thought that he had gone off his rocker.

The only time that he was not studying, i.e. going from one place to another or at meal times (mainly dinner), he would keep an eye on his surroundings and people in the surroundings. He had been pranked multiple times in the first two weeks. It was only due to his superior abilities, excessive training, and extreme agility that he had been able to either dodge or deflect most of the pranks on other people, making them stop their pranks altogether, although a particularly notorious pair of twins, supposedly brothers to the drooling idiot, had not given up and would regularly come up with new ways to humiliate him.

Fortunately for them, they were skilled enough that none of the pranks could be turned back on the pranksters, but unfortunately, even they were not successful most of the time. After a rather nasty burn from the 'prank', for which they couldn't be proved responsible for, harry swore revenge on them. And unlike them, he would do it all on his own, without the help of his schoolmates. But with the first task so close, he decided that it could wait.

* * *

Please do not forget to review.


	8. Before the first task

AN: Patience, dear readers. If I tell you all the aspects about the story, then there will be nothing left to read. Although, if you find some inconsistency, please do report.

* * *

Chapter 8

Only a couple days after the drawing of the names, Darcey had been informed of Harry's name coming out of the Goblet, or rather it should be said that Darcey had read it in that day's newspaper and then ranted at Pierre for not informing her right away. Pierre had then informed her that Harry can not back out, because it will be dangerous for him, to stop her from coming to England to take back her baby boy. And now, she had demanded that she speak to Harry personally after the day's classes were over, so here he was walking towards the headmistress' cabin in the carriage.

It would seem that she had taken the liberty to come here herself, because as soon as he entered the cabin with his father, he was embraced tightly by his mother and knowing it could only be his mother, he put his own arms around her. She held him for a full minute before pulling back enough to look at his face and then after kissing his face multiple times, she again pulled his head towards her.

After a minute, Harry himself said, 'Mum, I'm OK.'

When she finally pulled back, Harry could see that she had tears in her eyes. 'How can you be OK? These bastards have taken my son away from me. And I heard how they have been treating you.'

'Mum, seriously, it's OK. I'm fine. There's still Abella, dad and Remus here. There won't be a problem.'

After some more talking, Darcey said, 'Looks like they left the room', referring to Pierre and Madam Maxime, who was present when she had arrived.

'Yeah'

'Call them in honey, I will be going now anyway'

When they both came in, Darcey said, 'Thank you so much, Olympe. You have been wonderful to us.'

'Don't worry, dear. I care about my students' needs. Your coming here has probably helped Harry more than yourself.'

'Thank you anyway. Well, I must be leaving.' Then Darcey turned to Pierre, 'Take care of Harry. Bye, honey.' She said the last part to Harry.

'Bye mum'

* * *

After his meeting with his mother, Harry was feeling very good. Even when so many people were hating him, and actively tormenting him, he still had support from his loved ones and that was all he wished for. It would have been good, had Gabrielle too had supported him, but right now, he was mad at her. He would show her that he had not entered voluntarily and that he was not an arrogant person that she seemed to believe he was.

Right now, his problem was mainly composed of nightmares. Ever since the beginning of this year, he had been having nightmares every fortnight or so, with frequency increasing slowly. But he could never remember the dream. When he woke up this time, he immediately jotted down the details he remembered from the dream. He had started doing this a few days ago, when another nightmare woke him up covered in sweat and frustration, and he decided to do this.

The details that he was able to write down were not much; there was a snake, a demonic looking baby and a shabby man grovelling in front of the baby. For some reason, Harry could immediately figure out that the baby had to be the body of whatever was being possessed by Voldemort and the man had to be a death eater, a servant, which would explain his behavior towards the baby.

He had thought about telling his dad about this, but then he realised it could be just a dream, besides he had nothing to tell about, so no point in worrying them. And he decided on following through the same path. Because even though now he was sure it wasn't just a dream and had something to do with reality, it was still not much to go on.

* * *

Albus sat in his office thinking about what to do next. When he had made Harry come to Hogwarts, he had expected someone to put Harry's name in the goblet. And since he wanted that to happen, he had allowed certain laxity in the security around the goblet and put multiple charms that would have told him about the identity of the culprit. But they seemed to have been very cautious because not only did they put the name in the goblet, they also succeeded in escaping Albus' traps.

And therefore, now he was left with biding his time on that front. As for Harry, he had thought that forcing him to compete and then subsequent insults and pranks would be enough to be break him, but he seems to be very strong, probably because of the support he has, with a large part of his family here. He had tried to get Remus on his side, so that he could use him against the Martins. But it would seem that the ungrateful bastard wouldn't go along with anything that he had to say. How could he forget that he was the one who took him in when the others rejected him? He most certainly wasn't worth the effort Albus had put into him.

Back to the main problem at hand, he knew that he didn't have enough time to slowly break Harry like he would have done as contingency. So he would either have to do something drastic, which could have unwanted repercussions and he obviously didn't want Harry going back to France, or he would have to something underhanded, preferably by the use of his influence. And as he thought, a new plan began to formulate inside his devious head.

* * *

It was only a week till the first task for the tournament. With assistance, he and Fleur had figured out that it will involve some dangerous animal. As was usual for Harry, he had been studying from morning upto lunch time. Now he was going back to the carriage. On the way, he saw a familiar blonde face and remembered that he had seen him at the world cup. He must be Malfoy, his godmother's son.

He remembered that the tournament had people come from outside to watch the tasks too. So he thought he would observe the blonde before approaching him. It would be like a bitter pill to swallow, but he would do it for Remus and Narcissa. While Remus may not have seen the anguish on her face that day, Harry did. And if he could somehow get them to talk, he would.

While he was lost in his thoughts, he bumped into someone. He saw that the person he had just bumped into was a bushy-haired girl from gryffindor and if he remembered correctly, she was a authority worshipper and a book lover. Since it was his own mistake that he was not paying attention towards where he was going, he said sorry and smiled politely.

While it was not exactly surprising, it was still irritating that she just threw him a look of contempt as if he did that on purpose and walked away with a red-haired girl, who he had learned was the sister to the three redheads he hated most in Hogwarts. Shaking his head in exasperation, he continued and only took a step more when he saw Gabrielle looking at him with an expression of contempt which could easily dwarf the expression she had sported when she had last talked to him, or rather laid it in him.

When she started to turn around and walk away, he held her hand and started to speak, 'Gabrielle, stop!'

She immediately turned and shook off his hand from her as if burned and with a voice laced with venom, she spoke, 'You have no shame, do you? I can see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Stay away from me, _Potter_.'

Harry had known that ever since Halloween, Gabrielle had steadily grown more hostile towards him, giving him angry looks, sometimes even joining in the laughter that accompanied the snide remarks aimed towards him from Hogwarts students. But never in a million years he would have imagined that she would go for such a low blow. That was the last straw for him. Any hopes and expectations that he might have had for a relationship had evaporated in that moment. Heck, now even if she begged he wouldn't accept her even as a friend. And so, he left with a face of neutrality, at least that was what he hoped, but inside he was holding back crying. He wouldn't do that for her. She had dumped him without giving him benefit of the doubt. Was she honestly thinking that he was some sort of womaniser, just because he had smiled at a girl he didn't know? He'd never even had a girlfriend.

But the most hurtful part was that she had compared him to James, a person she knew he loathed for using his mother. Moreover, it was also an indirect insult to his adoptive parents. He would never forgive her for that.

He finally reached his carriage. He decided to skip the meal and went straight to his room and didn't come out till dinner time. He had been approached several times by his Abella, Fleur, his friends and even his father, after Pierre was informed that he was not coming out of his room.

When he did come out, he said he had wanted some alone time before the task and since his roommate had his afternoon filled with classes, so he decided that this time would be the best, and thankfully everyone believed him.

* * *

The next day, when Draco was again insulting him, Harry saw this as his opportunity to 'befriend' him.

'Hey scarhead! I heard you didn't like the new badges in your support. It's not a good thing to be such a spoilsport.'

'Whatever, Malfoy! I don't have time for your arguments right now. In fact, I am actually intrigued as to why are you taking such an interest in me.'

'You are not worth my time, Potter!'

'Martin.'

'What?'

'My name is Harry Martin. I am not and never will be a Potter. James was only my biological father.' He baited Malfoy, by giving him a piece of information, which he would not have said so freely in an argument. And it seemed to work, because Malfoy seemed to be thinking for a second, before he gave a nod and haughtily walked away, trying to give the impression that he was superior and he had just spared him. But Harry had other ideas. After all, it was just a week before the task and he had to set up his plan.

'Stop Malfoy. I have been meaning to talk to you.'

'Talk to me? Why?'

'Because you are different from everyone else in this dumpster of a school. We could be acquaintances, if you don't mind, that is. After all, we both dislike this place, don't you?'

Malfoy seemed to be considering this. Hook, line and sinker, he took the bait. 'Hmm, you might have a point. But what do I get out of your acquaintance?'

'Actually, getting acquainted was just a pretext.' On seeing Malfoy's face contort into anger, he quickly added, 'I actually thought we could even be friends. Besides, I am French and my family is quite friendly with the high authorities in France. It could be quite an advantageous situation for both of us. You help me here, in this castle instead of antagonising me and in future, you get leverage in France.'

Malfoy's face practically morphed into the face of a child on Christmas Eve, even as he tried to suppress it.

After a couple more minutes of conversation, they parted. Now he would just have to wait maybe for a couple of days before bringing up the topic of task and the audience for the task.

* * *

Harry spent the next four days studying as much as possible on dragons, since Madam Maxime had already informed them about the first task. She did this because 'she had been forced to bring her students here, so she will try to keep her students safe at least.' To Harry, it was a sound enough logic. Not to mention, everyone would be doing the cheating anyway. That was just the way the tournament had been played in the past as well.

Anyway, he was not idle when it came to his 'friendship' with Draco either. He had steadily become more and more familiar with him. So today, he finally approached the topic he was building the base for, for the last few days.

'Did you know that this tournament is watched by all the respected members of the hosting country? In fact, that is the reason that it was so popular. Only the death toll was the reason that it was canceled.' Harry watched Draco's expression change a bit, and then added 'Your father and mother will be coming, of course? They are quite influential in Britain, I have heard.'

'Of course, they will be coming. They are well connected with the Minister even.' Draco said without even thinking.

'Oh great, then I can meet them before the task. Right?'

'Of course.' The way with which Harry asked him seemed as if he was trying to get acquainted with the elder Malfoy's, perfect for Harry. The rest will be arranged by Draco himself, Harry had enough confidence in the fool. Now, he would have to devise a plan for the day of the task itself. He had to make sure that Remus met his godmother.


	9. First task

Chapter 9

Harry relaxed the day before the first task so that his mind could be free of tension that he had accumulated in the last few days. He and Fleur had developed their ideas individually but discussed amongst themselves and Pierre and Remus.

They had multiple mock tests to ensure that nothing went wrong on the day of the actual task. It had been a headache, but worth it, considering he had a level of confidence that he was sure he would not have had even if he would have been 17.

Anyway, he had one more thing to do. When he recalled his plan for Remus and Narcissa to get together, he identified a huge loop hole and now he was going to fix it by the help of his sister and father.

He met up with his sister in the common area of the carriage and then proceeded up to the castle for the office of their father.

"So Harry, what is the reason that you had to have an urgent meeting right now? It's already past curfew, not to mention, you have to get rest for the task tomorrow", his father said. Abella was also looking questioningly at him.

"Don't worry papa. It wouldn't take much time." He proceeded to explain to them his plan and the fault that he had found.

"Now the problem is that I can only distract Draco for the time being. This leaves his father and papa, I know this will be an atrocious task for you but it would help if you engaged him for a while. It shouldn't be too difficult, considering he wants to advance himself in France." Harry told them and watched for approval from his father. He could see the expression changes on his father's face when he told the scheme. It had initially been a bit guarded and then happiness, but turned a bit sour on the mention of his role.

"Alright, I'll do it. I really don't want to, but Remus deserves it. And I should mention how proud I'm of you, Harry. If all goes well, Remus would be too. But, why did you call Abella?"

"Because, even after occupying Draco and his father, I think that they would have some trouble breaking ice, so to speak. So I thought, who is very good at being nosy and interfering in everyone's life?" Harry's face was towards his father but eyes were on his sister, who looked angrily at him and smacked on the back of his head. Pierre chuckled at the antics of his children, who even in the face of danger could always bring a smile to his and Darcey's face.

"I'm only doing this for Uncle Remus, but you better watch out Harry; I won't hesitate to hex you a bit." On hearing a cough, she turned towards her father and blushed, "Sorry, but you tell this brat to keep his mouth shut."

Harry apologised after that, and a minute later they both were on their way back towards their carriage for proper rest before the task.

* * *

Harry had a good nights sleep and breakfast. It was at this point that he realised that he would not be able to meet with Draco's parents before the task as they were to go their tent straight away after breakfast, and only the champions were allowed inside the tent. He told Abella that they would need to execute their plan after the task was over and told the same thing to Draco later on.

In the tent, they had to wait for some time before the tournament authorities showed up. They were asked to draw something from a bag and from the look on everyone's face, he knew that Madam Maxime was exaggerating in the slightest. This tournament was full of cheating if it had started on this note.

Of course, he had to get the worst of the dragons, the Hungarian Horntail. But he wasn't too worried. If his plan worked, it wouldn't matter, what dragon he was up against.

One by one, the champions made their way towards the arena. Fleur took the least amount of time. Krum had the most noise of all, both from the dragon itself and the crowd. The Hogwarts champion on the other hand had the most silent performance; not much noise by any party. And soon it was his turn to go.

He went for the exit and as soon as he could see the light fall on the next turn from the arena's entrance, he stopped. No one could see him, so he quickly disillusioned himself and then turned to his animagus form and made a dash for the egg. He knew that some people had the ability to see beyond disillusionments and he also didn't want people to know that he was an animagus; after all, he didn't want his enemies to be aware of his abilities.

He grabbed the egg in his mouth by the latch that was on the egg for the opening. He again quickly made his way for the rock closest to the exit of the arena and hid behind it, only to emerge a second later in his human form. He had used the exact moment that people gasped in surprise at the egg's absence, when he revealed himself so that no one would be able to figure out how he did what he did. After that, it was a piece of cake. He was honestly surprised at the ease with which he had pulled this off.

He entered the medical tent, which the exit from the arena lead to. He could see that only Diggory had been injured in any real way. Krum had some bruises, and Fleur had slight burns. But he, the youngest champion, had done the task the fastest with no injuries whatsoever. He was a bit proud of himself because it was his first real achievement, and on final years to boot.

After the final champion's performance, friends were allowed in the tent, and the 2 teachers and the 2 siblings rushed towards Harry and Fleur who were sat together, talking. They were both congratulated by everyone except for Gabrielle, who only congratulated Fleur, but it went without the notice of everyone but Harry. She had a bored, almost an annoyed expression. Even though Harry now wanted nothing to do with her, it still hurt him to see that she could not even deign to congratulate him, even if for an act.

After the following events, i.e. scoring the champions, Harry having a lot of marks deducted from the foreign headmasters just because they could not figure out what he had done and he would not tell them, they all went outside. Harry gave the signal to Abella and his father and went off for Draco who was not standing far from his position.

"Hello Draco."

"Hello Harry. Meet my father Lucius and mother Narcissa." Harry greeted both of them formally, with a polite smile on his face. "Father, Mother, this is Harry Potter."

Harry could see clear as daylight when Narcissa's expression changed from the haughty attitude she used for the society, to one, he was sure, would be used for the friends and family, but it was not noticed by her own family.

"Hello Mr. Potter. Very good performance, you showed back there. May I ask what did you do to accomplish the task?" There it was. He knew that Lucius would be enthused by the prospect of gaining allies in the foreign territories, but that was just way too forward, even for him. Anyway, Harry knew how to deal with such people, courtesy of Adrian, who taught all the children the 'why's and the 'how's of dealing with people, who wanted to take advantage of children.

"Thank you Mr. Malfoy. I'm sorry, but this place is way too public to hold such discussions." Harry put up an apologetic look, and then added "Anyway, I was hoping for you to meet my father. He's over there." And with that, he lead the Malfoy family towards his own.

As according to the plan, Harry and Pierre distracted father and son. When Harry was walking away, he saw that Abella was doing a rather good job of initiating conversation. He focussed on Draco, so as to not arise suspicion.

"I thought that maybe we should walk off on our own, since they would be talking about whatever it is that adults talk about. I don't wish to get involved in it sooner than necessary." Harry explained to him the reason for dragging him away from the group.

After spending a reasonable amount of time with Draco, he made his way back to the group. He saw that his father had also started walking back to the group. Perfect. Harry could see that Remus and Narcissa were talking quietly, when they saw everyone else approaching and Abella quickly came over to them, along with Fleur. Gabrielle had already gone inside the carriage with her friends. After saying their goodbyes, the Malfoys left. It was a mission well done, because he could see that Remus seemed satisfied even though he clearly wished that Narcissa hadn't gone.

He would talk with Remus later about this.

* * *

That night, they had a celebration, the whole of carriage, since Fleur had been the highest scorer. They also cheered for Harry, because he was clearly the best performer, judges be damned.

After the party, the extended family minus Gabrielle were gathered inside Remus' room in Hogwarts, temporary of course.

"Where is Gabrielle? I invited all of you to come to my room." Remus inquired, after he saw that she wasn't present.

"Oh she said that she had some work to do. She told me to tell her whatever happened here." Fleur told them. Everyone seemed a bit uncomfortable at that.

"Anyway, congratulations to both Harry and Fleur, who performed marvelously today. Now, for the second and the main part of why I called you here. Harry, Pierre told me about your plan and I honestly cannot thank you enough for it. You're very considerate Harry, just like Lily. You should take a lot of pride in that because she was one of the few people, who I actually admired." Harry blushed under the praising gaze of his family. Fleur had already been told about this by Abella.

"Anyway, I found some new and interesting information about the Malfoy family. It seems that I had, after all, mistaken Narcissa's helplessness as willingness. She was an unfortunate victim of her family's bigotry. She was about to run from her house, when she was caught and long story short, she was forced to lie to me and marry that Malfoy bastard. Although, here is the best part. Black family is psycho and powerful enough to ensure that their daughters are never at a disadvantage. So that meant that Lucius could not force her to anything. And his son is not Narcissa's, but of some..uh..." Remus struggled for a polite word, given that even Harry was part of the audience, "engagement he had with a willing partner and Narcissa was forced to keep him as his son since she was also bound to protect her husband's respect. Although, Draco doesn't know this."

Everyone's expression was of pure shock. "So Narcissa is still..?" "Yeah. Waiting for me to come back or live as she has been for the past many years" Remus finished before Pierre could finish his question.

"Even though I am happy that she didn't go willingly, now I am angry with myself for doubting her. We have already made arrangements to exchange correspondence without interference. Hopefully, I will be able to free her from the bastard's control."

That night, everyone went to bed with thoughts preoccupying their minds and making it difficult for them to sleep. Although, Harry had his own troubles about sleep. He was about to have the worst nightmare of all, that have featured Voldemort.


	10. The Ball and the Prank

AN: If I haven't told before, fourth year's end will be where actual divergence from the original series starts.

* * *

Chapter 10

The day of the first task had been a very interesting one for Harry. First, because of the task itself. Second, because of the meeting of Remus and Narcissa. His father had told him that Lucius had tried to establish a relationship with him in order to further himself in France, but he had given him false assurances which he would get rid of in time. But the best news from the meeting had been the fact that Draco was not his godbrother and now he didn't have any inhibitions he previously held about hurting him.

But the last and most interesting part of the day had been, ironically, the night. He had a nightmare about Voldemort, after a lot of time. But this time, he could actually remember parts of it clearly. Still he had written in his diary. He remembered that the devilish baby Voldemort was angry at a young man, probably the same man from before. He was yelling at him in his high cold voice that he had almost failed in his mission and then as a reminder of what was the punishment, he promplty tortured him under the cruciatus curse. This just showed how cruel was Voldemort. He would torture his most devoted followers for mistakes.

He could also remember something about 'resurrection' or something along those lines. That was the most he could remember, but it was better than almost nothing, which he was previously able to remember. He didn't tell anyone yet about those dreams as he didn't want to worry people about something, just in case, it was a false alarm. Although he was pretty sure that it was genuine. But without the details, it would not prove useful.

He was just talking to Draco right now a week after the task.

"Anyway, I would like to thank you for helping me keep the idiot twins off of my back. I owe you one for that. I would have dealt with them earlier but the task was on my mind, and they had become a major annoyance for me." Harry thanked him for the help Draco gave him the week before the task.

"You're welcome. They are an annoyance to the whole school and not just you so it was a bonus for me as well. But now that the second task is a long time away, what are you going to do about them?" Draco inquired.

"I can't tell you right now, but I can promise you a good show. Let's just say that this will be my way of saying thank you for the help." Harry shot him a slightly maliciously smile, which was returned by Draco. Draco was just about to say something, when a Hogwarts boy came towards Harry, definitely older than him, and said "Harry Potter, the Headmaster would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience. Would you like to go now?" Knowing that refusing would be very impolite, especially so considering that the head host was calling him. It would look very bad for Madam Maxime, so he gave a nod and started to follow the boy.

When he the outside of the Headmaster's office, he could recognise it from the gargoyles described by Remus. The staircase started moving up without the password so he assumed that it must be based on the will of Headmaster, at least when he was inside his office.

"Sir, you asked for me?"

"Of course, Mr. Potter. Please take a seat." After Harry sat down, Dumbledore offered him the sweets that he offered to everyone who entered his office.

Harry knew that he had a calculating expression on his face, but he couldn't help it. Hewasn't about to let his guard down against this powerful person. And that much was evident from the sigh that the headmaster gave and said, "Mr. Potter, I am not going to beat around the bush. I have called you here for a very specific reason. You and I both understand that Voldemort is not permanently gone and can and will return from the 'dead'. I didn't do anything covert to know that you know about this. I know that the French ministry of magic is competent enough not to ignore important details. Anyway, I asked you here because I wanted to warn you about Mr. Malfoy. His father was one of the top Death Eaters, one of the few, who were recognised by Voldemort himself. And although he claimed to be under the imperious curse, I am certain that he wasn't. Now, I know that you are smart and powerful enough to defend yourself, but I just wanted you to be safe because your family was a target before the war and when Voldemort returns, he will want to complete the set and being lax around Mr. Malfoy could be very risky." Dumbledore finished seriously.

Harry had a very serious face by the end but his calculating expression had risen even higher. "Sir, if I may ask, why are you warning me against one of your own students? After all, you always say that everyone deserves a second chance."

It seemed that Dumbledore had expected this question, for he almost immediately said, "Mr. Potter, just because I believe that everyone has good in them doesn't mean that they always act upon the good part. Even though he is my student and as such I feel responsible for his future to some extent, I cannot allow him to inflict harm upon anyone." After a minute of silence, he added, "I hope you know what you are doing by consorting with Mr. Malfoy. Have a good day, Mr. Potter."

"Good day, Sir" As Harry was leaving, he could see that there was a calculating expression on headmaster's face, but acknowledged that after such a meeting, he couldn't expect anything else of him. Even he was a bit confused. The man almost seemed genuine in his concern for him.

* * *

After a week, Harry again started to train for the tournament. Fleur had only been relaxed for two days before she started training again, but everyone understood the pressure Harry had been under when he was training.

Right now, he was trying to figure out what the egg could mean, and beside him was his sister, who also wanted to have a shot at trying to figure out the clue. They were inside his room in the carriage.

"This is getting very frustrating. I can't even handle not knowing the clue for one day, how am I going to keep trying to figure it out?" Harry moaned in distress.

"Harry, you have to be patient. The task was designed with 17 year olds in mind." Abella told him gently.

"Can't I ask Fleur about the clue? She found out about it in two days, so it cannot be all that big."

"Yes, but that is all the more reason why you should try it for yourself. You will find and study much more if you don't know what is it that you are looking for." Abella took a breath, then continued, "Look Harry, I'm also trying to get the clue with you so that you will not be bored. Besides, if you are unable to find the clue by New Year, she is going to tell you anyway. At least, you can respect her wishes. She is not teasing you by not telling you; she only intends to help."

"I know, sorry. But it's very frustrating, you can't deny that." Harry said in a slightly dejected voice, and then suddenly remembered another piece of information that he had only received this morning, "And do you know that there is a yule ball? A ball in which champions have to open the dance."

"What? Who told you this?"

"Madam Maxime. This morning, she called me and Fleur to her office and then told us about the ball. She said that because we were the champions and that she trusted us, she was telling us beforehand. She cannot tell anyone else, because then everyone else will know including the outsiders. She also said that we could tell you because she trusts you as well. But now I have to also think about the ball and who I am going to ask to the ball."

"Ok, well, thank you for telling me. But there are so many girls that you can ask to the ball. Why are you so tense about it?" She asked him, confused why he couldn't find a date for the ball.

"Well, who would I ask? It's not like I know many girls to ask, do I?"

"What about Gabrielle, you idiot?" When Abella seriously asked him this question, Harry was surprised that she wasn't teasing him about this; at times, he was almost sure that Abella was hinting at something. Right now, he knew that he had to make up an excuse and fast, and then he remembered,

"But it would look so awkward; I mean she is taller than me. She would obviously prefer to go with someone taller." Abella stared at him for a moment, before conceding that he had a point. "Well look, you obviously have to have a date. And I can tell you this that ever since the first task, your reputation has gone up, at least in our school. So you can get a date easily enough."

"But I don't really want to go with someone I don't quite know. But you are right, I don't have any other option."

Harry and Abella both kept working on the egg for some time. They only made small progress, but then again, it wasn't meant to be easy for them.

* * *

In the coming two weeks, Harry was finally able to decipher what the clue in the egg was. Abella had already done so a week ago. When he had tried sound dampening charm so that he could listen to the sound without damaging his ears, he noticed that it had stopped shrieking. It was still incomprehensible but it wasn't shrieking so much as it was saying something in a muffled voice that he could simply not understand.

After that, he tried as many ways as he could think of to dampen the sound of the egg. And one day, he hit the gold.

But now that the trouble of figuring out the egg was over, he had to focus on whom to ask for the yule ball before starting work on a solution to the second task. It had been announced a week ago. Gabrielle was out of question, not only because he didn't want to take her but because she had already been asked; although, she wasn't telling who had asked her, at least that's what Fleur said.

He had already tried with two of his friends, but both had already said yes. It seemed that being friends with a champion also had its perks. Now he knew that he would have to ask an acquaintance for the yule ball. And if he wasn't fast enough, soon he would be left with only strangers. So decided to swallow his nervousness and went up to a girl that he knew was shy and was generally found alone, but she was very beautiful and very kind. She was sitting in the library on a bench by herself.

"Hey Marie, I wanted to ask you something, if you have some time?" He asked, expectantly.

"Hi Harry, please sit down. Now what did you want to talk to me about?" She asked quietly.

"Well, I was wondering if you would like to go the ball with me?" He sounded confident on the outside, but inside he knew that if she said no, he wouldn't be left with many options.

"Uh, sure Harry, but you haven't got a date yet?"

"No, actually I was too busy with figuring out the clue to the second task that I didn't get time to ask anyone." Harry finished a bit lamely. "So I'll pick you up at 7:45, then?"

"Sure, Harry." Before she turned again to her books, Harry couldn't help but ask, "Marie, how is it that no one asked you, yet? I was almost sure that I would be disappointed by asking you this late?"

She smiled a bit and then said, "If I am not wrong, you are the ninth person to ask me for the yule ball, Harry. And thank you for the latter comment."

Harry was a bit surprised her revelation. "Well then, why didn't you say no to me?"

"Because, unlike so many others, you didn't ask me after seeing my face. This whole tournament is a formality for you, which means that you will look for companionship rather than time-waste. And I know you enough to know that I will like your company, which is all I'm interested in right now."

Harry left after a few more words.

* * *

Today was the yule ball and Harry was excited. But his excitement wasn't limited to the company of Marie. Today, he would exact his revenge on the Weasley twins. He had everything he would need, ready. It was only a matter of execution. But it would require some stealth, because not only was he noticeable, but he was probably being spied upon. After all, he had been dragged into this tournament in the first place.

With the help of Remus, he had made another Marauders' Map and also learnt how to make yourself disappear from the map and then he had used his recently recovered Invisibility cloak to retrieve the other Marauders' Map from the twins. They could be seen sulking and bullying slytherin first years for a lot of time, which obviously earned a lot of detentions.

As for the invisibility cloak, Remus had told him about it. They had rightly assumed that Dumbledore must be having it. They had assumed that he must have taken it after the death of the Potters. Remus with the help of Harry's assent had threatened to sue Dumbledore, when he declined to help them. Both the parties knew that it was essential to keep the secret of the cloak safe, no matter who had the cloak. Dumbledore finally acquiesced when Adrian had showed up one day at his office, making him finally believe that they would act up on the threat if he didn't agree.

Anyway, right now he was inside the Gryffindor tower, executing his plans. He had made sure to use such items that could not be dispelled, instead you had to wait for them to run out of magic. With a grin, he made his way back to his own room in the carriage, where he got dressed and then came out at 7:40 to wait for his date. He was happy that his date also wanted to go with him as friends only, but he would not be ignoring the etiquettes, of course.

As soon as Marie came into sight, he stood and walked up to her, and offered her his hand with a slight bow. She clearly didn't expect this, because for a moment, she just stared before going into the role. She also courtesied and looped her arm through his.

While walking towards the castle, Harry whispered into her ear, "I hope I am not going overboard with this. You know... the formality?"

She chuckled lightly, "No, It's OK. I didn't expect this, but it's alright. I like it actually. Hope you know how to dance as well. People would hate to see their beloved champion trip over his own two feet." She said jokingly.

Harry put on mock outraged expression. "The nerve of you, young lady! I am an excellent dancer, and I will treated with nothing short of absolute respect." He said haughtily, and after a moment, both started laughing.

"But in all seriousness, " Harry started, and after taking a look at his surroundings to ensure that no body was hearing him said that, "I'm going to play a prank, which will start after a few songs. So I hope, you don't get too disappointed if the dance part of the night is cut short."

"Heavens no, as much as I like dance and music, it's more of a way of loosening up. I'm not interested in a ball dance with so many people. We can dance outside in the park as well, if we are upto it." She had just finished speaking as they were entering the Entrance Hall.

They were ushered to the side along with the other champions and their dates. Everything happened as expected for some time. They were given some instructions about their role in the ball, then led inside to the champions table, where they had dinner; they danced for 5 songs before the first unexpected thing happened.

Harry could hear laughter, that he knew the reason for. Everyone stopped dancing except for the twins, who also stopped shortly after hearing laughter. Harry could see that the twins had yet to realise that they were wearing nothing except for their undergarments. This was the result of a charm that he placed upon their garments, which would become invisible and then vanish when the wearers realise what had happened.

Then to increase the laughter in the Hall, both their bodies became red as their hair along with their undergarments. Even their dates had separated from them and laughing with the rest of the population.

And for the final trick, Harry wanted to include pain in their mockery, because their pranks hadn't been harmless either and he wanted to make an impression, even if he couldn't be placed responsible for this.

The twins started scratching their crotches vigorously because of the itch and pain they were experiencing. They were almost able to forget the embarassment from their semi-naked state, but the increasing laughter and the disgusted sounds that came from other occupants of the room was too much to ignore. They ran from the Hall holding their clothed crothes, and as they were leaving, even those who hadn't yet laughed, started laughing.

This was a mission successful for Harry knew that they wouldn't be out of their misery for at least half a day. The itch was given using a special spell. If this spell was tampered with before it had run its course, the chances were that the body part, where the itch was happening would be affected negatively. And this was something that every healer knew.

After ten minutes of laughter, everything was once again almost normal. People started dancing again, or went to for some fresh air. Harry was amongst those who went out and continued his dance with Marie.

"So, how did you like the prank?" Harry had a smile on his face.

"It was hilarious and well deserved, I might add. I saw some of the pranks that they played on you. And that wasn't funny. But what you did absolutely was. Except for the last part. Did you really have to make it so gross?" She frowned.

"Well, the gross part was half the fun. It had to be humiliating and painful, " Harry said mirthfully, but his face dropped a little when saying the next part, "just like they did to me. Anyway, we are not going to talk about those two idiots anymore. I hope you enjoyed the night as much as I did."

"I did, more than I had expected in fact. Thank you for an enjoyable company, Harry. You are a really good person. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." The last part was said a bit more seriously than the rest. They made small talk for the rest of the night before heading to their rooms.

Harry placed a light kiss on her cheek and turned. He was very thankful for his newfound friend and he knew that she also considered him a friend only. He was sure that she would be very helpful in getting him through the tournament, he just didn't know how much. Right now, the only people who he felt comfortable sharing things with were his sisters and uncles and father, and they were not his age, which left him feeling a bit alone. And now he had a good friend to talk to.

* * *

AN: I'm going to assume that you know the clue in the egg.

Please, read and suggest changes if you think of any.


	11. not a chapter

Apologies but this aint a chapter

As a newbie, I got too much influenced by the reviews and therefore lost my motivation and the direction in which I wanted the story to go to. Now, I simply can't find it in myself to finish this story. Sorry if this came a bit late, but until today I had planned on finishing it myself. Who knows, I may even rewrite it in the future.

Anyway, if someone wants to continue it or just use it as an inspiration, be my guest; just don't forget to mention my story too. Also if the person looking to complete the story wants me to send him an idea of the direction my story was taking, PM me.


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